Christopher Howard

This article examines the rationality of affective responses to virtual phenomena. I argue that at least some such responses can be perfectly rational, but that virtual realism and virtual irrealism—competing views about the metaphysics of the virtual—differ in their verdicts about the possible rationality of certain types of responses. Realism says that virtual objects are real; irrealism says that they're nonexistent fictions. I argue that while both views can accommodate the rationality of certain affective responses to the virtual, irrealism, unlike realism, significantly restricts the range of possibly rational responses. I suggest that this asymmetry may provide a promising path forward in the metaphysical debate, because we can leverage intuitive judgments about which affective responses to the virtual can be rational in assessing the relative plausibility of realism and irrealism.

Many authors, including Derek Parfit, T. M. Scanlon, and Mark Schroeder, favor a “reasons-first” ontology of normativity, which treats reasons as normatively fundamental. Others, most famously G. E. Moore, favor a “value-first” ontology, which treats value or goodness as normatively fundamental. Chapter 10 argues that both the reasons-first and value-first ontologies should be rejected because neither can account for all of the normative reasons that, intuitively, there are. It advances an ontology of normativity, originally suggested by Franz Brentano and A. C. Ewing, according to which fittingness is normatively fundamental. The normative relation of fittingness is the relation in which a response stands to an object when the object merits—or is worthy of—that response. The author argues that his “fittingness-first” ontology is no less parsimonious than either the reasons- or the value-first ontology, but it can plausibly accommodate the existence of all the normative reasons there are. It therefore provides a superior ontology of normativity.

The “quality view” claims that what makes love fitting are the lovable qualities of the beloved. Although natural, this view seems to face a battery of embarrassing difficulties. It predicts, for example, that if someone is more lovable than your beloved, then it’s fitting for you to love that person more than, or instead of, your beloved (the problem of trading up); and that if your beloved loses his lovable qualities, it would no longer be fitting to love him (the problem of inconstancy). Chapter 6 offers a new defense of the quality view. It argues that, by supplementing the view with a plausible pluralism about normative reasons for love, quality theorists can easily answer all of the problems that putatively plague them.

Among both the defenders and adversaries of orthodox Trinitarian dogma, the so-called “kenosis hymn” of Philippians 2 was of the utmost importance, whether in refuting opponents’ teachings or articulating one’s own. While historical theologians have extensively investigated its place in the works of Sts. Hilary and Augustine—each the leading Latin pro-Nicene authority of his time—a comparative examination of the two has not yet been undertaken. This article seeks to trace and account for Augustine’s noteworthy improvement upon his predecessor’s thought in the closely related realms of exegesis and Christology. It first summarizes the most relevant points of continuity and discontinuity in the Latin bishops’ uses of the Pauline language of forma dei–forma serui. From there, it turns to the role of Phil. 2 in countering subordinationist readings of hotly contested scriptural texts, arguing that Augustine more ably responds to the challenges at hand. Finally, it argues that his employment of the forma dei–forma serui paradigm is closely linked to his teaching on the revelatory capacity of Christ’s human nature. With regard to both, Augustine’s teaching marks a bona fide development of Hilary’s and thus of the Latin tradition more broadly.