Liam Ryan

Is mercy merely compatible with institutional justice, or is it partly constitutive of it? I defend the constitutive justice thesis that a legal system instantiates institutional justice only if it includes an authorised, internal corrective capacity for exceptional cases, properly characterised as mercy. This position opposes formalist conceptions that identify institutional justice with impartial rule-application alone. The argument proceeds by motivating the need for an authorised, internal, corrective capacity for corrective judgement in exceptional cases. It is then argued that when such correction operates in punitive and remedial contexts, it is properly characterised as mercy. Sophocles’ Antigone is then employed as a diagnostic case to show that a legal system which excludes this corrective capacity forfeits its claim to justice altogether. It is thereby shown that a conception of justice which excludes mercy risks collapsing into an inhuman and ultimately self-undermining form of legality.

Is mercy merely compatible with institutional justice, or is it partly constitutive of it? I defend the constitutive justice thesis that a legal system instantiates institutional justice only if it includes an authorised, internal corrective capacity for exceptional cases, properly characterised as mercy. This position opposes formalist conceptions that identify institutional justice with impartial ruleapplication alone. The argument proceeds by motivating the need for an authorised, internal, corrective capacity for corrective judgement in exceptional cases. It is then argued that when such correction operates in punitive and remedial contexts, it is properly characterised as mercy. Sophocles’ Antigone is then employed as a diagnostic case to show that a legal system which excludes this corrective capacity forfeits its claim to justice altogether. It is thereby shown that a conception of justice which excludes mercy risks collapsing into an inhuman and ultimately selfundermining form of legality

This paper introduces a novel approach to interpreting the problem of evil, centred on a dynamic interplay between pre-formalised notions and their formal representations. Our thesis posits that the resolution to the problem lies in comprehending the underlying intentions of the premise set, rather than resorting to ad hoc, syllogistic rebuttals to the perceived contradictions. By applying this reasoning to the historical dialectic of the problem, we observe that certain resolutions to the problem of evil are more effective than others. The most effective solutions are those that maintain the integrity of the accumulated pre-formalised notions, while less effective ones either confront the contradiction head-on or disregard it entirely. Moreover, we discover that the process of striving and failing in this context yields valuable insights, enhancing our understanding and broadening the scope of our initial pre-formal notions about the problem of evil.

The purpose of this dissertation is to come to a better understanding of the nature of philosophical problems, and what it means to make philosophical progress. It is proposed that it is the unsolvable nature of such problems that makes them truly philosophical. It is also proposed that philosophical progress is made by engaging with philosophical problems in a philosophically satisfying manner: neither abandoning unsolvable philosophical problems nor reducing all philosophical problems to formal problems. In support of these objectives, a particular approach to making philosophical progress is proposed, called receptivism. This approach is employed in analyses of four specific problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion: the problem of consciousness for physicalism, the problem of possibilia, the problem of religious beliefs, and the problem of evil.

Some philosophers argue that mental properties are ontologically distinct from physical properties and that, therefore, physicalism ought to be rejected. There are philosophers who feel the force of this challenge but who wish to maintain their physicalism. They suggest that mentality is grounded in inscrutable properties or ‘incrutables’: properties that are not revealed through physical enquiry but that do not violate physicalism. Our analysis reveals that appealing to inscrutables is not a successful strategy for these physicalists, for the following reasons: first, inscrutables likely do violate the conditions of physicalism; second, inscrutables lend greater support to panpsychism than physicalism; third, there is good reason to be agnostic as to whether or not inscrutables count as physical properties. Each of these reasons undermines the physicalist’s purpose in positing inscrutables. If one wishes to remain a physicalist, they ought to direct their philosophical analysis and energies toward revisiting and defeasing the arguments that purport to show that mental properties are ontologically distinct from physical properties.

Some philosophers argue that mental properties are ontologically distinct from physical properties and that, therefore, physicalism ought to be rejected. There are philosophers who feel the force of this challenge but who wish to maintain their physicalism. They suggest that mentality is grounded in inscrutable properties or ‘incrutables’: properties that are not revealed through physical enquiry but that do not violate physicalism. Our analysis reveals that appealing to inscrutables is not a successful strategy for these physicalists, for the following reasons: first, inscrutables likely do violate the conditions of physicalism; second, inscrutables lend greater support to panpsychism than physicalism; third, there is good reason to be agnostic as to whether or not inscrutables count as physical properties. Each of these reasons undermines the physicalist’s purpose in positing inscrutables. If one wishes to remain a physicalist, they ought to direct their philosophical analysis and energies toward revisiting and defeasing the arguments that purport to show that mental properties are ontologically distinct from physical properties.

Does religious belief differ in any interesting way from other kinds of belief? For now, take ‘belief’ to mean how one takes the world to be, on the basis of which they act. Call beliefs like this ‘ordinary beliefs’. There are also more complicated, or abstract, beliefs. Call such beliefs ‘non-ordinary beliefs’. Are religious beliefs different in any significant or interesting way from what we call ‘standard belief’? Our analysis shows that they are not. Although the content of religious belief is different, and sometimes so is the function, religious beliefs are still mental, dispositional attitudes that aim to provide a correct representation of the world. Therefore, religious beliefs are best understood as a sub-category of standard beliefs, alongside ordinary and non-ordinary beliefs. This account of religious belief provides further insight into the meaning of belief and supports a revision of a strict demarcation between standard and non-standard beliefs.

In his paper, ‘Patients, doctors and risk attitudes,’ Nicholas Makins1 argues that healthcare professionals should defer to a patient’s higher-order risk attitudes (ie, the risk attitudes they desire to have or endorse within themselves upon reflection) when making medical decisions. We argue against Makins’ deference to higher-order risk attitudes on the basis that (1) there are significant practical concerns regarding our ability to easily and consistently access and verify the higher-order risk attitudes of patients, (2) there is a lack of a theoretical limit on higher-order risk attitudes (eg, second, third, fourth order), and (3) the consideration of higher-order risk attitudes is actually more paternalistic than Makins suggests because it narrows what counts as an autonomous preference to the limited occasions in which an individual actually reflects on his or her own risk attitude. On the issue of practicality, we can reasonably expect that healthcare professionals would find difficulty eliciting the higher-order risk attitudes of their patients. Take for example the patient who has never expressed his higher-order desire to be more risk adverse and who is not willing nor comfortable expressing this desire. What is the healthcare professional expected to do in this situation? This is even more of a concern for the incapacitated patient, to which Makins seems to imply that …

How should we understand the Confucian doctrine of the rectification of names (zhengming): what does it mean that an object’s name must be in accordance with its reality, and why does it matter? The aim of this paper is to answer this question by advocating a novel interpretation of the later Confucian, Xunzi’s account of the doctrine. Xunzi claims that sage-kings ascribe names and values to objects by convention, and since they are sages, they know the truth. When we misuse names, we are departing from a sagely convention of naming. As sagely convention determines moral truth, departure from the linguistic convention of the sages is a departure from moral truth. On my interpretation of Xunzi, the rectification of names is not a doctrine about what is true, but a doctrine about how we aim at truth. We are aiming at descriptive truth when our language conforms to the correct name of an object according to what I call ‘Confucian conventionalism’. When we correctly aim at descriptive truth we can aim at moral truth. Therefore, I claim that the doctrine of the rectification of names is concerned with discerning the literal accordance of language with an object (what is descriptively, linguistically true), to determine what is normatively, or morally, true. According to Xunzi, moral truth is grounded in linguistic truth.

Ranging from scorn for the lightbulb - 'Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure' - to ideas on how life would be lived in the year 2000 - 'By the year 2000, housewives will probably have a robot maid shaped like a box with one large eye on top, several arms and hands, and long narrow pads on the side for moving about' - and offering predictions of failure for everything from the automobile - 'The Japanese don't make anything the people in the US would want' - to the iPod - 'By next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput.' - the book uses the gift of hindsight to show why one should never say 'never'.