bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Freedom and Moral Sentiment
Authors: Russell Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This book presents a critical examination of Hume's views on the subject of freedom and moral responsibility. It is widely held that Hume's discussions “Of liberty and necessity,” as presented in both the Treatise and first Enquiry, constitute the classical statement of the “compatibilist” position – the view that freedom and moral responsibility cannot only be reconciled with causation but actually require it. According to the classical interpretation, what is central to Hume's strategy is a distinction between two kinds of freedom: a freedom that implies the absence of causation and a freedom that implies the absence of compulsion. Hume is understood as claiming that it is the second kind of freedom that is required for moral responsibility, whereas the first kind would make moral responsibility impossible. The general argument leading to this conclusion is taken to be essentially logical or conceptual in character. Contrary to the classical interpretation, I argue that it is the workings of moral sentiment, and not the concept of freedom that is fundamental to Hume's views concerning moral responsibility. More specifically, the compatibilist strategy that Hume pursues must be interpreted in terms of his detailed description of the circumstances in which people are felt to be responsible. These naturalistic commitments are directly relevant to Hume's complex understanding of how freedom relates to responsibility. It is his view that we must not exaggerate the importance of voluntariness and control for moral responsibility. These “naturalistic” aspects of Hume's position are not only crucial to understanding the nature and character of his own (distinctive) position on this subject they are also the key to understanding the considerable contemporary relevance of his naturalistic approach (e.g., in relation to P. F. Strawson's influential contributions on this subject).
Action, Character, and Excuses
Authors: Russell Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
Hume's understanding of how moral sentiment is aroused commits him to some puzzling and controversial views about responsibility and excusing considerations. More specifically, Hume maintains that people are responsible for actions only insofar as they reveal enduring qualities of mind or character. He also holds that agents cannot be held responsible for actions that were produced by qualities of mind that they no longer possess. In this chapter, I examine the basis of these claims and consider how they relate to Hume's naturalistic principles. I suggest that the specific theses that Hume advances are implausibly strong and at odds with the sort of ordinary moral experience that he claims to be drawing from.
Will, Intention, Feeling: The Indications of Character
Authors: Russell Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
In Hume's account, an accurate interpretation of action requires that we carefully identify the motives and intentions that caused it. I examine these aspects of Hume's account of action and the way that they relate to his theory of responsibility. I am especially concerned about explaining the role of will and intention in this sphere and showing that according to Hume a person can be held responsible for aspects of character that are manifested involuntarily (e.g., emotions and desires). These are, clearly, matters of considerable importance for an understanding of the relationship between responsibility and freedom.
Retributive Feeling and the Utility of Punishment
Authors: Russell Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
My primary objective in this chapter is to articulate Hume's theory of punishment. I argue that Hume is committed to a “mixed” or teleological‐retributivist account of punishment. The contemporary interest of Hume's theory of punishment, I maintain, rests with his effort to develop his account of punishment on the foundations of his naturalistic theory of moral responsibility. The discussion provided compares and contrasts Hume's views on this subject with those of several other thinkers, most notably Adam Smith.
Pride, Fortune, and the Godless Man
Authors: Russell Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
An adequate theory of moral responsibility must describe to what extent the virtuous can legitimately and reasonably expect some measure of happiness as their due reward (in this life or the next). Hume's approach to these issues downplays the importance of a system of legal rewards and punishments. Furthermore, Hume firmly rejects any system of divine rewards and punishments in a future state. His alternative approach to these matters does, however, place considerable weight on the importance of “pride and humility” in moral life, considered as a source of happiness or misery. I explain these features of Hume's system and show how they are related to his wider philosophical outlook concerning the relationship between religion and morality.
Responsibility Naturalized: A Qualified Defence of Hume
Authors: Russell Paul 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter provides a qualified defense of Hume's naturalistic approach to the problem of free will and moral responsibility. A particularly important theme is the contrast between Hume's naturalistic approach and the “rationalistic” approach associated with classical compatibilism. Whereas the rationalistic approach proceeds as an a priori, conceptual investigation into the nature and conditions of moral responsibility, the naturalistic approach is committed to an empirically oriented (i.e., psychologically informed) examination of these issues – giving particular prominence to the role of moral sentiment in understanding moral life and the place of justificatory issues as they arise within it. Whereas the rationalistic approach leads us into intractable difficulties and moral skepticism, the naturalistic approach makes real progress on this subject. On a more critical note, however, I also argue that, despite its strengths, Hume's theory of moral responsibility has significant weaknesses in the areas of moral virtue, moral capacity, and moral freedom.
Abortion and Social Responsibility
Authors: Shrage Laurie 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This book argues that Roe v. Wade 's six‐month time span for abortion “on demand” polarized the American public, and obscured alternatives that could have gained broad public support. As a result, a predictable bureaucratic backlash to legal abortion has ensued that has placed legal abortion services out of reach for women who are poor, young, or live far from urban centers. Explores the origins of Roe's regulatory scheme and demonstrates that it resulted from concerns that have considerably less relevance in today's medical context. Endorses regulatory guidelines, first proposed by the American Bar Association in 1972, which would give states more flexibility in setting the time span for unrestricted abortion. Argues that the standard civil liberty defenses of abortion (i.e. privacy, involuntary servitude, self‐defense, religious freedom) offer better support for these guidelines than for Roe’s scheme, and that a time span for nontherapeutic abortions shorter than six months can both protect women's interests and advance important public interests. The book also critiques the individualism of “pro‐choice” post‐Roe abortion rights campaigns for failing to articulate how women's reproductive options depend on access to public services and resources and not only on being let alone. Urges reproductive rights activists to emphasize the interconnections both between social responsibility and respect for human life, and between the Samaritan obligations of pregnant women and those of other citizens. Explores feminist artwork on abortion to extrapolate tools for refocusing the abortion debate on these issues and for contesting the extremist tactics of the “pro‐life” movement.
Is Roe Viable?
Authors: Shrage Laurie 
Published: October 2003

AbstractExamines criticisms and defenses of the “viability” criterion, which was introduced in Roe v. Wade to mark the cutoff for nontherapeutic abortions. The viability criterion opened a six‐month window for “abortion on demand,” which was (and remains) unusual by worldwide standards. Examines the origins of the viability cutoff and shows that it was introduced in later drafts of Blackmun's opinion because it was thought to be more compatible than other proposed cutoffs with the privacy‐based reasoning articulated in Roe. The rationale used by the Supreme Court is both mistaken and less relevant given abortion procedures available today. Because the six‐month time span for abortion on demand has deepened social divisions on abortion, has generated restrictions that unfairly burden poor and young women, and is not required to give women adequate access to abortion, new criteria for regulating legal abortion need to be developed.
From Reproductive Choice to Reproductive Barbie
Authors: Shrage Laurie 
Published: October 2003

AbstractEvaluates “pro‐life” and “pro‐choice” media campaigns, featuring fetuses and coat hangers respectively, and shows how both reflect individualistic ideologies about responsibility and freedom. Rather than participate in public discourses that construe individual responsibility and liberty as simple moral alternatives, considers feminist political art that raises questions about our collective responsibilities to support others. Also considers visual and performance artwork that draws attention to the way that pregnancy and persons are culturally constructed. Urges reproductive rights activists to jettison the coat hanger image in favor of images that would promote constructive public dialog on access to contraception, child and family support, the duties of all citizens to provide life‐saving help, the positive aspects of enabling women to control their fertility, and the dangers of religious extremism.
The Framework of the Covenant Code
Authors: Van Seters John 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter pursues a literary analysis of the narrative context of the Covenant Code within the Sinai law‐giving episode and the code's relationship to, or original independence from, the Pentateuchal sources of that context. The opening laws, the prohibition of divine images, and the law of the altar are discussed as part of the code's framework and in comparison with similar laws in Deuteronomy. The epilogue in Exod 23:20–33 is compared with its parallel in Deut 7 and special attention is given to the “messenger” motif and its place in the wider biblical context. The analysis in this chapter concludes that the Covenant Code belongs to the Yahwist as an integral part of his larger Pentateuchal corpus.
God as the Good
Authors: Adams Robert Merrihew 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter introduces the book's central theses about the nature of the Good: that God is the Good itself, the definitive standard of excellence, occupying roughly the role assigned to the Form of the Good or the Beautiful in Plato's Republic and Symposium, and that the excellence of other things consists in a sort of resemblance to God. These are presented not as claims in the semantics of morals, about the meaning of “good”, but as claims in the metaphysics of morals, about the nature of goodness or (more precisely) of excellence. The chapter explores philosophical issues about these views and their implications regarding the nature of God.
The Transcendence of the Good
Authors: Adams Robert Merrihew 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This chapter considers how far we should expect beliefs to be confirmed in the same way in ethics as in science, and argues that precisely by setting limits to empirical confirmation in ethics, the thesis of the transcendence of the Good enables theism to provide more adequately than naturalism can for a critical stance that is important to ethics. The Good's transcendence, its surpassing all other good things and all our conceptions of the Good, is understood here in qualitative and positive rather than formal and negative terms, and as supporting an open‐endedness in ideals of human life.
Devotion
Authors: Adams Robert Merrihew 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThis chapter defends devotion to the Good as such, or to God, as an integrative ideal and organizing principle for human motivation. It explores ways in which the infinite good or God can be loved in loving finite goods with full particularity. Ideas of higher order preferences and of alliance with God, and with those who love the Good play an important part in this integration of loves.
Persons and Causes
Authors: O'Connor Timothy 
Published: October 2003

AbstractPERSONS AND CAUSES investigates the nature of freedom of action, or ‘metaphysical’ freedom, which is generally supposed to be a necessary condition on moral responsibility. The author develops a version of the Consequence Argument for the incompatibility of freedom with causal determinism. The bulk of the work is then devoted to giving a philosophical analysis of what must be true for human agents to act freely. He defends the coherence of the notion of agent causation, a metaphysically primitive form of causality uniquely exercised by persons, alternately drawing upon and criticizing earlier versions of the agent‐causationist account (particularly, Reid, Taylor, and Chisholm). He then provides an original account of the way reasons can explain agent‐causal activity—an account that gives a prominent place to intentions‐in‐action whose contents refer to the reason that explains the action. Finally, the author considers the objection that his account conflicts with the requirements of metaphysical Naturalism. He argues that insofar as this thesis can be made clear and is well motivated, it is consistent with the present account, given the possibility that metaphysically primitive causal capacities might emerge from fundamental physical capacities organized within certain complex systems.
Freedom and Determinism
Authors: O'Connor Timothy 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe author considers the modal, or ”consequence,” argument for the incompatibility of free will and determinism. He diagnoses the defects in van Inwagen's original formulation of the Beta principle before recasting and defending a variant of the argument in terms of two simpler closure principles governing unavoidability. After disputing Frankfurt's case against the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, he argues that even if one rejects an alternative possibilities condition on moral responsibility, it would be implausible to conclude that responsibility is consistent with determinism.
Reasons and Causes
Authors: O'Connor Timothy 
Published: October 2003

AbstractA theory of how reasons may explain agent‐causal actions is offered. Contrary to the causal theory of action, there can be an internal, non‐contrastive explanatory link between a prior motivational state and the intention‐in‐action that the agent causes. Davidson's criticisms of noncausal accounts of reasons explanations are considered and rebutted here when directed against the present account. The account is then enriched with a causal notion of ‘structured propensities’ to accommodate the fact that some actions, though undetermined, are more likely than others to be performed. Finally, the restrictivist position of Peter van Inwagen (which maintains that free actions are much rarer than ordinarily supposed) is criticized.
The Mandaeans
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen 
Published: October 2003

AbstractThe Mandaeans are a Gnostic sect that arose in the Middle East around the same time as Christianity. Although it is one of the few religious traditions that can legitimately claim a 2000‐year literary history, there has been very little written about them in English. What little study of the religion there has been has focused on the ancient Mandaeans and their relationship to early Christianity. This book examines the lives and religion of contemporary Mandaeans, who live mainly in Iran and Iraq but also in diaspora communities throughout the world, including New York and San Diego (USA). The author seeks to cross the boundaries between the traditional history‐of‐religions study of the Mandaean religion (which ignores the existence of living Mandaeans) and the beliefs and practices of contemporary Mandaeans. She provides a comprehensive introduction to the religion, examining some of its central texts, mythological figures, and rituals, and looking at surviving Mandaean communities – showing how their ancient texts inform the living religion, and vice versa. The book is arranged in three parts: Beginnings; Rituals; and Native hermeneutics. A glossary and extensive endnotes are included.
From Iraq to California
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAn account is given of the life of a contemporary Mandaean poet, Lamea Abbas Amara, who was originally from Iraq, and now lives in San Diego, California. It discusses her religious origins, her relationships (and those of other contemporary Mandaeans) in the community, the complex relationship between Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and the Mandaeans, and her Mandaean beliefs and family history. The family history includes priests and goldsmiths (the Mandaeans are traditionally skilled goldsmiths and silversmiths). One of Lamea's poems is included at the end of the book.
Miriai
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen 
Published: October 2003

AbstractFocuses on the mythological figure of Miriai, who in some Mandaean traditions is Jesus’ mother, while in others she is portrayed as a positive figure, but with no associations with Jesus. The presence of Miriai in Mandaeism raises the possibility that there was a brief Christian stage in early stage in the religion. An examination is made of how the Mandaeans present Miriai in their mythologies. This first discusses the traditions about her in the Book of John, next her conversion from Judaism to Mandaeism, and then her appearance in the Friday and Saturday prayers preceding and following the Jewish Sabbath – as a repeater of the statement cutting the ties of Mandaeism with Judaism. The last section of the chapter is a general discussion of Miriai's elevated position in Mandaeism, as one whose traditions portray Mandaeism's critical attitude to its former home of Judaism.
The Ducks That Came to the Marshes
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen 
Published: October 2003

AbstractStarts the third part of the book, on native hermeneutics (interpretation issues). It gives an account of New York Mandaeans; Mandaeans first came to New York to the World Exposition in 1939, to show their silver and gold art. Accounts are given of various meetings of members of this community with the author, and their beliefs and practices are described.
Interpretive Strategies in The Scroll of Exalted Kingship
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen 
Published: October 2003

AbstractAlong with texts such as The Great ‘First World’, the scroll of Exalted Kingship belongs to a category of Mandaean texts that might be called Mandaean priestly esoteric documents.’ Exalted Kingship is a large scroll, consisting of 1,363 lines, with drawings, and, in rather elliptical fashion, describes the initiation of the tarmida (a first‐level priest), which is the subject of Ch. 9. The text proceeds slowly, pausing and delving into lengthy dissertations on topics deemed suitable. In this chapter, selected sequential passages are examined from among the beginning of Exalted Kingship (lines 7–225), where the text plumbs the mysteries of the effects of the novice's words while he sits inside the šskinta (cult hut) on the second day of the initiation. Interpretations and underlying themes are presented.
Thousands of Names, Hundreds of Lineages
Authors: Buckley Jorunn Jacobsen 
Published: October 2003

AbstractDeals with some aspects of the author's own ongoing research on Mandaean colophons, including the postscripts, which are called tariks. Colophons form family trees because they list names and thereby show the vital threads of scribal lineages through the centuries. The names of a great number of copyist priests, the colophons present nothing less than an unbroken Mandaean history. A translation of an entire tarik from one of the Manuscript A (1560) in Petermann's Ginza is included.
Taylor's Edwardsian Legacy
Authors: Sweeney Douglas A. 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
In his conclusion, Sweeney moves beyond the usual story of Edwardsian decline to a summary of Taylor's own substantial legacy to post‐Edwardsian America. He notes that in New England, Taylor's theology managed to split Connecticut's General Association, but his opening up of the Edwardsian culture changed the face of New England Theology. As America moved westward, Taylor's dilation of New England's traditional regional orthodoxies paved the way for the spread of its churches and their theology on the frontier. For Taylor, as for his American successors, the proof of one's theology lay in preaching and virtuous living.
Problems at the Roots of Law
Authors: Feinberg Joel 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
This collection of essays is united by a common concern with basic questions pertaining to law and morality and the relation between the two. The first essay considers whether judges must appeal to natural law or natural justice when the law seems incomplete or indeterminate. In cases in which the law is immoral, natural law theorists and legal positivists align in their rejection of a moral obligation to obey the law. The second essay defends the view that moral rights exist independently of institutional structures. The complex issue of criminal entrapment is the focus of the third paper, and the position defended is that although an entrapped person sometimes may not be held criminally liable for the crime she voluntarily commits as a result of police enticement, in many cases we may make adverse moral judgments about her conduct. The view espoused in the fourth essay is that completed crimes and failed attempts should be treated in the same way when determining the appropriate punishment. The fifth essay offers various arguments to support the claim that funding of the arts through taxation is justified. Among other things, the arts offer intrinsic, though often benefitless, value to society, which is worthwhile to maintain and preserve. In the sixth paper, the discussion focuses on the notion of pure evil, or sheer wickedness, contrasting it with that of mental illness (or sick! sick! sickness) and identifying some places in which this distinction blurs. The final essay in this collection looks at how, since Plato's time, moral language and psychiatric language have fused ideas of immorality and mental illness.
Criminal Entrapment
Authors: Feinberg Joel 
Published: October 2003

Abstract
The focus of this chapter is the conflict between various analyses of criminal entrapment. The question is who is the culprit when circumstances are arranged by police so that a person freely chooses to perform a crime that she otherwise would not commit? Entrapment is disturbing to us given our appreciation that every person seems capable (and thus predisposed) to commit some kinds of proscribed actions; thus, entrapment has become a derogatory term referring to an abuse of government power, and is often used as a defense in criminal law. This defense against liability considers both the strength of the police inducement and the strength of the defendant's predisposition to commit the crime. Although criminal liability is partly a matter of luck, not all moral judgments are matters of luck. In opposition to the view sometimes espoused by Thomas Nagel, whether a person deserves adverse moral judgment is not merely a matter of moral luck since it is not owing to luck that certain moral judgments correctly apply to her conduct: although there is reason to posit circumstantial bad luck, there is little reason to posit dispositional bad luck.