bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Ontotheology
Authors: Halteman Matthew C. 
Published: September 2018

‘Ontotheology’ has two main meanings, one arising from its usage by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and a second from its usage by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Though Kant’s influence on Heidegger suggests at least a loose connection between these two senses of ‘ontotheology’, they are largely independent of one another.
For Kant, ‘ontotheology’ describes a kind of theology that aims to know something about the existence of God without recourse to scriptural or natural revelation through mere concepts of reason alone, such as the concept of the ‘ens realissimum’ (the most real being) or the ‘ens originarium’ (the original, most primordial being). Ontological arguments for the existence of God such as those offered by Anselm and Descartes are paradigm cases of ontotheology in the Kantian sense.
For Heidegger, ‘ontotheology’ is a critical term used to describe a putatively problematic approach to metaphysical theorizing that he claims is characteristic of Western philosophy in general. A metaphysics is an ‘ontotheology’ insofar as its account of ultimate reality combines—typically in a confused or conflated manner—two general forms of metaphysical explanation that, taken together, aim to make the entirety of reality intelligible to human understanding. These are an ontology that accounts for that which all beings have in common (universal or fundamental being) and a theology that accounts for that which causes and renders intelligible the system of beings as a whole (a highest or ultimate being or a first principle). Traditionally interpreted, Platonic metaphysics is a paradigm case of ontotheology in the Heideggerian sense insofar as it explains the existence of particular beings by recourse to universal forms (ontology) and explains the origin and intelligibility of the whole of beings by recourse to the Good as that from which everything else emanates (theology).
It is this Heideggerian sense of ‘ontotheology’—and, in particular, Heidegger’s influential critique of the approach to metaphysics it describes—that animates contemporary discussions of ontotheology, especially in ‘continental’ history of philosophy and philosophy of religion. The main problem with ontotheology, according to Heidegger and his heirs, is that it is driven by a desire to ‘master’ reality that masks a deeper anxiety over the challenge of existing as finite beings vulnerable to a world that resists and confounds our life projects. Critics maintain that this existential mood of stability-seeking angst disposes humanity to experience the world primarily as something to be subordinated to human intellect and will. They contend that this mood so pervades ontotheology that, within its purview, reality is reduced to what can be calculated, measured, and manipulated: beings are understood predominately as consumable resources, God is depersonalized into a first cause, and opportunities to experience awe and wonder at the indeterminate, inexplicable, mysterious, or holy aspects of reality are diminished or occluded.
Idolatry
Authors: Fowl Stephen 
Published: September 2018

The use of material images of various gods (idols) in religious worship has a long history and a central place in the polytheistic religions of the ancient world. The worship of these gods is strictly prohibited in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This practice is generally referred to as idolatry. In addition, the making of images of the one God along with the use of such images in worship is also considered idolatry within these three monotheistic faiths. In the ancient societies within which Judaism, Christianity and, later, Islam emerged, almost all aspects of life were touched by the presence of idols. For a Jew (particularly in the diaspora) or a Christian to faithfully negotiate one’s way through the activities of daily life in such a world required sustained attentiveness and resolve.
Over time, idolatry became more generally and metaphorically associated with ideas, motivations, beliefs and commitments that draw believers’ attention away from God. In some instances in Christianity, idolatry simply becomes a synonym for sin.
Although it is not common today for Jews, Christians or Muslims to worship fabricated images of their own or other gods, some of the ongoing philosophical and theological issues concern how God’s creation can manifest the invisible God. In what ways, if any, can the created world mediate God truthfully to humans? Can such things as icons be instrumental in the worship of the one God without that worship being idolatrous? In recent French phenomenological writing, some of these issues receive attention.
Although these concerns may seem distant from those of the Bible and Quran, they share a common recognition that idolatry stems from a failure of attentiveness, an inability or unwillingness to focus one’s attention and desire upon God in the face of myriad distractions.
Ockhamism
Authors: Finch Alicia 
Published: September 2018

Ockhamism, so named because it was developed and defended by the fourteenth-century philosopher William of Ockham, is a long-enduring response to fatalist arguments. Fatalism, the thesis that it is impossible for anyone to act freely, comes in two varieties: logical and theological. Logical fatalists begin their argument with the assumption that no matter what anyone does, it has always been true that she does it, while theological fatalists begin by assuming that no matter what anyone does, God has always known that she does it. Fatalists go on to argue that, since no one can change what has always been true or what God has always known, no agent can ever do anything other than what she does; hence, no agent ever acts freely. The Ockhamist response, in brief, is that arguments for fatalism trade on a failure to distinguish between changing the past, on the one hand, and its being up to an agent what the past was like, on the other. Once the relevant distinction is drawn, Ockhamists contend, it is clear that fatalist arguments are unsound.
Though Ockham himself was primarily concerned with theological fatalism, his argument may just as well be formulated as a response to logical fatalism. It should be noted that there are many formulations of Ockhamism, just as there are many formulations of the fatalist argument.
Pascal’s wager
Authors: Jordan Jeff 
Published: September 2018

Pascal’s wager is a type of theistic argument developed by Blaisé Pascal, a French mathematician of the seventeenth century. There are at least four versions of the wager within Pascal’s posthumously published work, Pensées, each of which is a pragmatic argument. Pragmatic arguments for theism are designed to motivate and support belief even in the absence of strong evidence. They seek to show that theistic belief is permissible, even if one does not think that it is likely that God exists, and then to employ prudential reasons to conclude that one should accept theism. Other theistic arguments – the Ontological Proof or the Cosmological Argument for example - provide epistemic reasons in support of theism: that is, reasons to think that there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, morally perfect being. According to Pascal, there is good reason to seek to inculcate theistic belief, even if one does not appreciate the evidence in support of theism (see Pascal 1960). The role of the wager, as Pascal conceived it, was to move self-interested individuals towards a perspective in which they could appreciate the evidence for theism. Understood in this way, the wager is not a pragmatic trumping of the epistemic, but a means of bridging the chasm between the pragmatic and the epistemic.
The wager has the structure of a gamble, a decision made under uncertainty. Pascal assumed that a person, just by virtue of being in the world, is in a betting situation such that one cannot avoid betting one's life on whether God exists or not. The wager concerning God is forced, one might say, since trying to avoid wagering is tantamount to wagering for one of the alternatives. To wager that God exists is to take steps to inculcate theistic belief. To wager against is to do nothing. Bringing about belief is not an action that one can directly will, but one can take steps to try to bring about belief indirectly.
If one wagers on God and believes, then there are two possible outcomes. Either God exists and one may have put oneself in a position to gain an eternity of bliss; or, God does not exist and one loses little, if anything. On the other hand, if one bets against God and wins, one gains little. But, if one loses that wager, the consequences may be dismal. Because the first alternative has an outcome that overwhelms any possible gain attached to nonbelief, the choice is clear, says Pascal, one should wager that God exists.
Sceptical theism
Authors: McBrayer Justin 
Published: September 2018

Sceptical theists are theists who are sceptical of our abilities to discern whether the evils in our world constitute good evidence against the existence of God. According to sceptical theists, the human mind is limited in such a way that it would not at all be surprising that God would have reasons that are beyond our understanding for allowing the evils of our world. For that reason, we are not licensed to conclude that what look like pointless evils to us are really pointless evils. For all we know, the evils in our world are necessary to secure some greater good or prevent an evil equally bad or worse. The sceptical element of sceptical theism can be used to undermine various arguments for atheism including both the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness.
Many trace the seeds of this view to the book of Job in the Hebrew scriptures, and it was developed by various modern thinkers, starting with Descartes and Hume. Contemporary philosophers have further refined sceptical theism into a family of related views, each with a different defence. These defences include appeals to analogies (for example the parent/child relationship), appeals to the limitations of our grasp of the moral realm and appeals to epistemic requirements (for example sensitivity requirements or contextual requirements). Sceptical theism has been criticized in a variety of ways including charges that sceptical theism falsely implies a consequentialist view of ethics, that consistent sceptical theism results in moral paralysis, that sceptical theism implies a more pervasive (or even global) form of scepticism and that sceptical theism reduces to absurdity.
Applied ethics
Authors: Almond Brenda 
Published: September 2018

Applied ethics is marked out from ethics in general by its special focus on issues of practical concern. It is concerned with ethical issues in various fields of human life, including medical ethics, business ethics and environmental ethics. Within these broad areas, it engages with policy issues resulting from scientific and technological change and with the evaluation of social and legal decision-making in public areas such as health care, policing, media and information, and the world of business and finance. It is also concerned with professional codes and responsibilities in such areas.
The boundaries between areas are not solid. For instance, ethical issues arising from the new reproductive technologies inevitably interact with family and human relationships and this can open up broader questions about gender and ethnicity, population and demographic change. Similarly, discussion of the surveillance society has links with crime and punishment, terrorism and war, while the issue of animal experimentation in the laboratory has immediate links with questions about animal rights and ethically based vegetarianism.
Although practical ethical issues like these are often regarded as free-standing, applied ethics sees them in relation to some of the more fundamental questions that have been perennial preoccupations of philosophers, such as: How should we see the world and our place in it? What is the good life for the individual? What is the good society? In this way, applied ethics must take into account basic ethical theory, including utilitarianism, liberal rights theory and virtue ethics. Some see it as necessary to reason from within one of these ethical positions in order to deal adequately with an issue; others adopt a more relativistic strategy, and simply list what they see as the alternative conclusions to be reached from those differing theoretical bases. Others again favour a contextual solution that has affinities to the ancient practice of casuistry. These differences in underlying theory inevitably affect conclusions on practical issues, so that applied ethics is in the end, like other philosophical explorations, a controversial area.
‘Applied ethics’ and ‘applied philosophy’ are sometimes used as synonyms, but applied philosophy can be used more broadly to cover also such fields as law, education, art or artificial intelligence. The difference is that these areas include philosophical problems - metaphysical and epistemological - that are not strictly ethical, while applied ethics focuses more narrowly on ethical questions. Nevertheless, many of the issues it treats do in fact involve other aspects of philosophy. Medical ethics, for example, may raise metaphysical questions about the nature of ‘personhood’ or the definition of death, and conceptual questions about truth and trust.
Business ethics
Authors: Sorell Tom 
Published: September 2018

Business ethics is the application of theories of right and wrong to activity within and between commercial enterprises, and between commercial enterprises and their broader environment. It is a wide range of activity, and no brief list can be made of the issues it raises. The safety of working practices; the fairness of recruitment; the transparency of financial accounting; the promptness of payments to suppliers; the degree of permissible aggression between competitors: all come within the range of the subject. So do relations between businesses and consumers, local communities, national governments and ecosystems. Many, but not all, of these issues can be understood to bear on distinct, recognized groups with their own stakes in a business: employees, shareholders, consumers, and so on. The literature of business ethics tends to concentrate on ‘stakeholders’ – anyone who occupies a role within the business or who belongs to a recognized group outside the business that is affected by its activity – but not in every sort of business. Corporations are often discussed to the exclusion of medium-sized and small enterprises.
Theories of right and wrong in business ethics come from a number of sources. Academic moral philosophy has contributed utilitarianism, Kantianism and Aristotelianism, as well as egoism and social contract theory. There are also theories that originate in organized religion, in the manifestos of political activists, in the thoughts of certain tycoons with an interest in social engineering, and in the writings of management ‘gurus’. Recently, business ethics has been affected by the ending of the Cold War, and the breakdown of what were once command economies. These developments have encouraged enthusiasts for the market economy to advocate moral and political ideas consistent with capitalism, and the handing over to private companies of activity in certain countries that has long been reserved for the state.
Development ethics
Authors: Crocker David A. 
Published: September 2018

Development ethics is ethical reflection on the ends and means of socioeconomic change in poor countries and regions. It has several sources: criticism of colonialism and post-Second World War development strategies; Denis Goulet’s writings; Anglo-American philosophical debates about the ethics of famine relief; and Paul Streeten’s and Amartya Sen’s approaches to development.
Development ethicists agree that the moral dimension of development theory and practice is just as important as the scientific and policy components. What is often called ‘development’ – economic growth, for instance – may be bad for people, communities and the environment. Hence, the process of development should be reconceived as beneficial change, usually specified as alleviating human misery and environmental degradation in poor countries.
Development ethicists do not yet agree on whether their ethical reflection should extend to destitution in rich countries or aspects of North–South relations apart from development aid. Other unresolved controversies concern the status and content of substantive development norms. Finally, agreement does not yet exist as to how the benefits of and responsibilities for development should be distributed within and between countries.
Family, ethics and the
Authors: Ruddick William 
Published: September 2018

Do obligations to children take priority over filial and other family obligations? Do blood kin have stronger moral claims than relatives acquired through marriage? Whatever their origin, do family obligations take precedence over obligations to friends, neighbours, fellow citizens? Do family moral ties presuppose specific family feeling, love, or loyalty? Is the traditional family of a married, heterosexual couple with biological offspring morally preferable to families formed by adoptive, single, remarried or same-sex parents, or with the help of gamete donors or gestational (‘maternal’) surrogates? On what grounds may friends, neighbours or government agencies intrude upon ‘family privacy’?
To simplify the complexity and diversity of family life, reasoned answers to such questions may stress a single dimension. A metaphysical approach draws on the commands of a deity or the needs of a nation. A biological approach appeals to physical resemblance, blood or genes. An economic approach focuses on family property, income, division of work and resources, and inheritance. A related political approach attends to power, subordination, and rights within a family, as well as to their regulation by the state. A psychological approach takes affection, identification, intimacy, and emotional needs as morally decisive. A narrative approach makes recalling and revision of family stories the basis of moral education and the definition of family ties.
Although mutually compatible, these approaches do each tend to favour particular moral theories.
Future generations, obligations to
Authors: De-Shalit Avner 
Published: September 2018

There are at least three different views concerning obligations to future generations. One is that morality does not apply here, future generations not being in any reciprocal relationship with us. Another is that, though we are not obliged to do anything for future generations, it would be praiseworthy to do so. A third view is that justice demands that we respect the interests of future generations.
Philosophers and others have discussed obligations in three main areas: the environment, and the damage inflicted upon it in pursuit of profit; savings and the accumulations of capital; and population policy.
Different theoretical approaches have been taken. According to utilitarianism, the interests of people count equally with those of present people, and all interests are to be satisfied maximally. This may have very demanding implications. Contractarianism rests morality on the agreement of all affected parties. But whose views will be considered in the case of future generations? Perhaps the most plausible approach is communitarianism, according to which obligations can rest on a sense of community which stretches into the future.
Good, theories of the
Authors: Korsgaard Christine M. 
Published: September 2018

‘Good’ is the most general term of positive evaluation, used to recommend or express approval in a wide range of contexts. It indicates that a thing is desirable or worthy of choice, so that normally, if you have reason to want a certain kind of thing, you also have reason to prefer a good thing of that kind.
A theory of the good may consist in a general account of the good, which is meant to apply to all good things; or in a definition of ‘good’, that is, an account of how the term functions in the language. Theories of the good have metaphysical implications about the relations between fact and value. Many ancient and medieval philosophers believed in the ultimate identity of the real and the good. Modern philosophers generally reject this identification, and have held a range of positions: realists, for example, hold that the good is part of reality, while certain moral-sense theorists hold that when we call something ‘good’ we are projecting human interests onto reality; and emotivists hold that we use the term ‘good’ only to signify subjective approval.
Theorists of the good also categorize different kinds of goodness and explain how they are related. Good things are standardly classified as ends, which are valued for their own sakes, or as means, valued for the sake of the ends they promote. Some philosophers also divide them into intrinsic goods, which have their value in themselves, and extrinsic goods, which get their value from their relation to something else. Various theories have been held about the relation between these two distinctions – about whether an end must be something with intrinsic value. Philosophers also distinguish subjective or agent-relative goods – things which are good for someone in particular – from objective or agent-neutral goods, which are good from everyone’s point of view. Views about how these kinds of goodness are related have important implications for moral philosophy.
Usually, a theory of the good is constructed in the hope of shedding light on more substantive questions, such as what makes a person, an action, or a human life good. These questions raise issues about the relation between ethical and other values. For example, we may ask whether moral virtue is a special sort of goodness, or just the ordinary sort applied to persons. Or, since actions are valued as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, we may ask how these values are related to the action’s goodness or badness. We may also pose the question of whether a life that is good in the sense of being happy must also be a morally good or virtuous life. This last question has occupied the attention of philosophers ever since Plato.
Ideals
Authors: Rosati Connie S. 
Published: September 2018

Ideals are models of excellence. They can be moral or nonmoral, and either ‘substantive’ or ‘deliberative’. Substantive ideals present models of excellence against which things in a relevant class can be assessed, such as models of the just society or the good person. Deliberative ideals present models of excellent deliberation, leading to correct or warranted ethical conclusions. Ideals figure in ethics in two opposed ways. Most centrally, ideals serve to justify ethical judgments and to guide people in how to live. Sometimes, however, ideals may conflict with moral demands, thereby testing the limits of morality.
Reliance upon ideals in the development of ethical theories seems unavoidable but raises difficult questions. How can the choice of a particular ideal be justified? How might conflicts between ideals and other values, especially moral demands, be resolved?