Desire and Rationality

The chapter starts by defending the claim that desires make a difference to what it is rational for us to do. It then defends Warren Quinn’s classic argument that many dispositional theories of desire fail to explain this rationalizing force: they cannot explain why desires, unlike other dispositional states, are rationally significant. The chapter goes on to explain how desire-as-belief can explain the rational significance of desire, by appeal to widely accepted claims about the rational significance of our normative beliefs. The chapter then shows how this reasoning also counts in favour of treating desires as beliefs rather than perception-like states, as some nearby rival views do.

Land Fictions and the Politics of Commodification in City and Country

This chapter explores the “land fictions” underpinning this variable land commodification recipe, without presuming that the cocktail of commodified outcomes it produces follows a single storyline or shares a fixed cast of characters. It emphasizes the continuous work of legal, regulatory, and narrative fictions that go into the making of land as a commodity and that enact and sustain the property relations that underpin linked value projects. This involves following the stories spun by land aggregators, developers, financiers, and marketers in all their guises. To open up the narratives, storylines, and discourses that govern the commodity world of land, the chapter introduces Karl Polanyi's classic argument about the commodity fiction underpinning what he termed market society, by which he meant a political-economic order in which social life is organized to meet the pecuniary, ideological, and administrative needs of a so-called self-regulating market. With the recognition of commodity fiction, this chapter unveils the constitutive fictions by which various nonmarket functions of land, labor, and money become imaginatively and practically stripped away, reducing complex social and natural systems to “elements of industry” or mere objects of exchange.

Rousseau, Bodin, and the Medieval Corporatist Origins of Popular Sovereignty

This essay reconsiders Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s debt to Jean Bodin, on the basis of Daniel Lee’s recent revision of Bodin as a theorist of popular sovereignty. It argues that Rousseau took a key feature of his own theory of democratic sovereignty from Bodin—namely, the dual identity of political members as both citizens and subjects of the state. It further makes the case that this dual identity originates in medieval corporatist law, which Bodin was summarizing. Finally, it demonstrates the lasting impact of corporatist law in eighteenth-century France, highlighting Rousseau’s direct borrowings from the corporatist language and logic of contemporary commercial societies. In this regard, the article revisits and updates Otto von Gierke’s classic argument about the origins of the state in corporatist thought.

A Novel Argument for Vegetarianism? Zoopolitics and Respect for Animal Corpses

This paper offers a novel argument against the eating of meat: the zoopolitical case for vegetarianism. The argument is, in brief, that eating meat involves the disrespect of an animal’s corpse, and this is respect that the animal is owed because they are a member of our political community. At least three features of this case are worthy of note. First, it draws upon political philosophy, rather than moral philosophy. Second, it is a case for vegetarianism, and not a case for veganism. Third, while it is animal-focussed, it does not rely upon a claim about the wrong of inflicting death and suffering upon animals. The paper sets out the argument, responds to two challenges (that the argument is merely academic, and that the argument does not go far enough), and concludes by comparing the case to Cora Diamond’s classic argument for vegetarianism.

O fatalismo relativístico

In this article, I will argue that the argument for fatalism based on the relativity of simultaneity (RoS) fails. The original proponents of the argument (Rietdijk 1966, Putnam 1967 and Penrose 1989) called the thesis in terms of ‘determinism’, but Levin (Levin 2007) refers to it as ‘relativistic fatalism’. Relativistic fatalism is a view supported by the alleged dependence of the property of being future on an arbitrary choice of some coordinate system. First I will try to explain the classic argument, attributed to it a dialectic that justified to call it in the same terms as Levin did. Subsequently, I will refuse the relativistic fatalism using many strategies to deal with it.

When Will the Cessation of Speaking in Tongues and Revelatory Gifts Take Place?

This article discusses recent interpretations of 1 Corinthians 13:8–10, particularly those of biblical scholars Daniel B. Wallace and James W. Scott. Both scholars advocate for the cessation of speaking in tongues, and they avoid the classic argument that the “perfect” in this passage refers to the close of the biblical canon and full revelation of Scripture. Rather, Wallace argues from the middle voice in Greek for the early cessation of speaking in tongues, and Scott argues from the delayed Parousia for the cessation of tongues and revelatory gifts. This article responds to their arguments and reaffirms that Paul is claiming here that speaking in tongues and revelatory gifts will not cease until the Parousia takes place.

An Argument from Contingency

A classic argument from contingency is presented in the language of contemporary plural logic. Included are several independent supports for the principle of explanation that drives the argument. The argument is tested with the instrument of objections. Thus, historical objections from Hume and Kant are examined, and then a series of more recent objections to arguments from contingency is considered. Objections include various reasons to doubt, or hesitate to accept, the principle of explanation. Whether the argument could be sound even if there were an infinite regress of causes is carefully considered. The chapter closes by citing both strengths and weaknesses of the argument.

Autonomy of Folk Psychology Reconsidered

It has been a recurring theme in the philosophy of mind that folk psychology is autonomous. This paper has three goals. First, it aims to clarify what the term 'folk psychology' could mean in different contexts. Four widespread senses of the term are distinguished and the one eligible for autonomy is picked out. Secondly, a classic argument for autonomy is introduced and motivated. This is the argument from the normativity of folk psychology, based on its constitutive rationality. According to this argument, mentalistic concepts are to be understood as components of prescriptions for a rational course of action, rather than descriptions. Thirdly, limits of the argument from normativity are demonstrated. At best, the argument applies to merely a small segment of explanations in terms of mentalistic vocabulary, as the latter is meant to convey much more than simply normative content about the rational profile of an agent.

Property Taxation, Zoning, and Efficiency in a Dynamic Tiebout Model

This paper presents a dynamic Tiebout model and uses it to revisit a classic argument in public finance. The argument, due to Hamilton (1975), is that a system of governments financing services with property taxes will produce an efficient allocation of housing and services if governments can implement zoning ordinances. In the model, when governments choose zoning along with taxes and services, there does not exist an equilibrium that is both efficient and locally stable. Moreover, there exists an equilibrium in which governments over-zone and households overconsume housing. These findings challenge the Benefit View of the property tax. (JEL H71, H73, R52)

Malthus redux, and still blind in the same eye

Gowdy & Krall (G&K) essentially recapitulate Malthus's classic argument for ecological pessimism in modern biological dress. Their reasoning also reproduces Malthus's blindness to the implications of technological innovation. Agriculture might have suppressed human individualism as G&K insist, but technology has tended to foster it. This complicates human ecological prospects in a non-Malthusian way, and it might additionally provide the resources for deliverance from disaster.