On March 17, 2015, Brill was informed that the article by Francisco Gómez Camacho S. J., “Later Scholastics: Spanish Economic Thought in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries,” in _Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice_, ed. S. Todd Lowry and Barry Gordon, pp. 503–561 suffers from serious citation problems and that in some cases the original sources are never mentioned at all. It goes without saying that Brill strongly disapproves of such practices, which represent a (...) serious breach of publication integrity. Brill condemns any violation of the authors’ rights and the copyrights of the publishers, and distances itself from these practices. As a result Brill cannot stand behind the noted material as originally contained in this volume and for these reasons formally retracts the article by Francisco Gómez Camacho and also the volume. The volume will no longer be available in its current form. (shrink)

Constant digital surveillance has inspired a heated but also limited privacy debate. Lowry Pressly looks beyond the narrow discourse of rights and information to extol privacy as a tool for living. Privacy, he argues, not only reinforces our capacities for play, self-discovery, connection, and trust, but also is vital to the search for meaning.

This article seeks to shed light on debates about the right to be forgotten by offering a new account of the right as grounded in the confidence that the direction of one’s life is up to one and worth the trouble that it takes to direct it. I show how this confidence is supported by what the right actually provides: the possibility of new social interactions unconditioned by information about one’s past. This view avoids pitfalls facing other accounts of the (...) right’s moral basis, clarifies its relation to rights of privacy, and resolves several puzzles thought to face its practical application. (shrink)

Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and (...) this makes it plausible to claim that the preference is rationally permitted. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output filters and input filters) can account for a wide range of rights-based moral theories, (...) including the absolute notions of moral rights proposed by Hayek, Mayo, Nozick, and Shue. We also discuss whether the use of output filters and input filters can be generalized to cover other non-utilitarian theories, such as Kantian duty ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

This essay is part of a special issue celebrating 50 years of Political Theory. The ambition of the editors was to mark this half century not with a retrospective but with a confabulation of futures. Contributors were asked: What will political theory look and sound like in the next century and beyond? What claims might political theorists or their descendants be making in ten, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years’ time? How might they vindicate those claims in their future contexts? How (...) will the consistent concerns of political theorists evolve into the questions critical for people decades or centuries from now? What new problems will engage the political theorists (or their rough equivalents) of the future? What forms might those take? What follows is one of the many confabulations published in response to these queries. (shrink)

Computer abuse by employees is a critical concern for managers. Misuse of an organization’s information assets leads to costly damage to an organization’s reputation, decreases in sales, and impositions of fines. We use this opportunity to introduce and expand the theoretic framework proffered by Thong and Yap to better understand the factors that lead individuals to commit CA in organizations. The study uses a survey of 449 respondents from the banking, financial, and insurance industries. Our results indicate that individuals who (...) adhere to a formalist ethical perspective are significantly less likely to engage in CA activities than those following a utilitarian ethical framework. In addition, the results provide evidence that employees with individualistic natures are linked to increased CA incidents, whereas collectivist tendencies are associated with decreases in CA behaviors. Our results also show that collectivism acts as a strong moderator that further decreases the relationships between formalism and CA, and utilitarianism and CA. Finally, we offer detailed suggestions on how organizations and researchers can leverage our findings to decrease CA occurrences. (shrink)

_Arabic Belles Lettres_ brings together ten studies that shed light on important questions in the study of Arabic language, literature, literary history, and writerly culture. The volume is divided into three sections. Early Narratives comprises: Joseph Lowry on the Qurʾan's allusive legal language; Abed el-Rahman Tayyara on matrilineal lineages in the context of Badr and Uhụd; Ruqayya Khan on the ramifications of public courtship in ʾUdhrī romances; and Philip Kennedy on firāsah (reading for signs and traces) in medieval narrative. (...) Medieval Authors comprises: Shawkat Toorawa on ʿUbaydallāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Ṭāhir's History of Baghdād; Maurice Pomerantz and Bilal Orfali on Ibn Fāris and the origins of the maqāmah genre; Everett Rowson on al-Tawḥīdī and his predecessors (a reprint of his 1996 ZDMG article); and Ghayde Ghraowi on al-Khafājī and his Rayḥānat al-alibbāʾ. Modern Egypt comprises: Roger Allen on a cultural controversy in the Cairo newspapers of 1902; and Devin Stewart on preposterous boasting and ingenuity in on modern Egyptian Arabic. (shrink)

This paper examines two strategies aimed at demonstrating that moral obligations to improve global health exist. The ‘humanitarian model’ stresses that all human beings, regardless of affluence or global location, are fundamentally the same in terms of moral status. This model argues that affluent global citizens’ moral obligations to assist less fortunate ones follow from the desirability of reducing disease and suffering in the world. The ‘political model’ stresses that the lives of the world's rich and poor are inextricably linked (...) because of harmful state-to-state actions and because of the currently existing transnational institutions. These institutions’ design at once secures the high standard of living of the affluent and reinforces the continued foreseeable—and avoidable—deprivation of many of the global poor; and these give rise to compensatory health-related moral obligations beyond borders. This paper argues that political reasoning is unsuitable for the crucial task of determining priority in the receipt of health aid. We conclude that in the context of global health ethics, political reasoning must be supplemented with, if not replaced by, humanitarian reasoning. (shrink)

Most moral philosophers agree that if a moral agent is incapable of performing some act ϕ because of a physical incapacity, then they do not have a reason to ϕ. Most also claim that if an agent is incapable of ϕ-ing due to a psychological incapacity, brought about by, for example, an obsession or phobia, then this does not preclude them from having a reason to ϕ. This is because the 'ought implies can' principle is usually interpreted as a claim (...) about physical, rather than psychological, capacities. In this paper I argue for an opposing view: if we don't have reasons to do things that we are physically incapable of doing, then neither do we have reasons to do things we are psychologically incapable of doing. I also argue that extending the 'ought implies can' principle to psychological capacities makes the principle more attractive. (shrink)

Based on a close reading of the debate between Rawls and Sen on primary goods versus capabilities, I argue that liberal theory cannot adequately respond to Sen’s critique within a conventionally neutralist framework. In support of the capability approach, I explain why and how it defends a more robust conception of opportunity and freedom, along with public debate on substantive questions about well-being and the good life. My aims are: to show that Sen’s capability approach is at odds with Rawls’s (...) political liberal version of neutrality; to carve out a third space in the neutrality debate; and to begin to develop, from Sen’s approach, the idea of public value liberalism as a position that falls within that third space.En me basant sur une lecture attentive du débat entre Rawls et Sen sur les biens premiers versus les capabilités, je soutiendrai que la théorie libérale est incapable, dans un cadre neutraliste conventionnel, de répondre adéquatement à des injustices dans le domaine de la santé. À partir de l’approche des capabilités, j’explique pourquoi et comment cette approche permet de défendre une conception plus robuste de l’opportunité et de la liberté, de même qu’un débat public sur des questions substantielles concernant le bien-être et la vie bonne. Mes objectifs sont : de clarifier le rapport entre le neutralisme de Rawls et sa défense des biens premiers,, de démontrer les implications de la critique des capabilités de Sen, et, d’esquisser une troisième position dans le débat sur la neutralité versus le perfectionnisme – à savoir, celle d’un perfectionnisme motivé par des considérations de légitimité. (shrink)

RésuméJe défends une conception générale de la justice qui vise à identifier ce qui est commun à plusieurs types de justice complémentaires. John Rawls reconnaît qu’il existe plusieurs types (ou « niveaux » ou « objets ») de justice, chacun nécessitant ses propres principes, mais il s’oppose à une conception générale pour favoriser plutôt « l’unité obtenue grâce à une séquence appropriée ». Je présente ma conception générale — la justice comme responsabilité de façonner des environnements inclusifs — comme une (...) voie différente vers l’unité théorique de tous les types de justice. Je montre comment ma conception générale de la justice peut être obtenue à travers un processus de généralisation qui a pour point de départ la conception de la justice domestique de Rawls. (shrink)

Amartya Sen’s capability critique identified a problem with Rawls’s use of primary goods as his metric of advantage (that is, his way to measure inequality). Sen offered the notion of capability as a solution that would improve the ability of justice as fairness to acknowledge unfair inequalities related to disability, among other things. This chapter aims, first, to provide a more precise and conciliatory understanding of the disagreement between Rawls and Sen (by attending to Rawls’s remarks about the value of (...) liberties); second, to spell out the deeper theoretical implications of Sen’s critique by tracing the connections between the elements Sen modifies and other more fundamental elements in justice as fairness (such as liberal neutrality); third, to identify problems raised by those implications; and fourth, to provide a solution by developing a further modification to Rawlsian theory (namely, _public value perfectionism_). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Doubts About Libertarianism Obligations Conclusions References Further reading.

Johansson and Rosenqvist reject our argument for the rational permissibility of pure time preferences (PTP). Johansson and Rosenqvist's main objection is that where two options, X and Y, have equal intrinsic value, there will be a reason to be indifferent between X and Y, and therefore a reason to not hold a PTP for X or Y. In this reply, we argue that if two options have equal intrinsic value, it does not follow that you have a reason to be (...) indifferent. Rather, the two equally large intrinsic values cancel each other out, like two equal weights on kitchen scales. (shrink)

This article critically discusses of Ben Berger’s, making two main claims. First, I argue that his conceptual distinctions ought to be further developed in order to be able to distinguish between, on the one hand, politically legitimate moral ends (i.e., ones that are suitable objects of political engagement) and, on the other hand, other moral ends that ought to be pursued only through social engagement. To help with this task I consider the significance of the difference between what I refer (...) to as ethical reasoning and justice reasoning, and I sketch a fourfold distinction between types of justice. Second, I argue that Berger does not give adequate emphasis to the government side of the task of making political engagement more efficacious. In addition to his worthwhile recommendations for increasing the social capital of the many, we should also be concerned to determine how best to limit, or, better, remove, the now massive political influence of the financial capital of America’s wealthiest. (shrink)

This article is a systematic consideration of aristotle's position vis-a-vis modern tendencies to judge all philosophical positions as historically conditioned. the argument shows that aristotle's position is not only not reducible to historical temporality but is transcendent of it. the article, which contains original translations of key passages in the metaphysics and physics and refers to the de anima, topica, poetics, nicomachean ethics, rhetorica, and history of animals, points to the author's own systematic philosophy entitled mentaphysics (chiron, 1978). particular stress (...) is laid on the relation between "logos" and "physis" with respect to aristotle's definition of "nous" as finally a divine "zoon". (shrink)

The Ashgate Research Companion to Islamic Law. Edited by Rudolph Peters and Peri Bearman. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2014. Pp. x + 345. $149.95, £95.

..". An important reminder that we are called to live our faith in our work, ... keeping Christ at the top of one's priorities, regardless of the demands of the workplace."--- J. David Karam, president, Wendy's International, Inc. ..". Both practical and inspiring!"--- Tom Monaghan, founder, Domino's Pizza, Inc., and Ave Maria University "Too many Christians treat ambition and success as if they're four-letter words.... For a Catholic in business, they can be touchstones of sanctification."--- Scott Hahn, Ph.D., professor of (...) biblical theology, Franciscan University of Steubenville ..". A hallmark for personal excellence.... [It] provides the motivation, the means, and the message needed for anyone looking to make a true difference in our world."--- Lisa M. Hendey, founder and editor of CatholicMom.com and author of A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms. (shrink)

Professor Gerson has written a study of Plato using a contemporary analytic theme as his beginning, namely, whether Plato makes a distinction between “human being” and “personhood.” Gerson believes that Plato does make such a distinction, and that this distinction is based on his theory of knowledge. While Gerson makes it clear that he is aware of contemporary discussion and of the possibility that his theme is anachronistic when applied to Plato, he forges ahead with a study that shows itself (...) to be sympathetic to Plato’s writings without being unduly attentive to analytic narrative. (shrink)