9/27/2013 The Ethics of Substance Abuse

by Nicholas Palladino

        Mental illness provides interesting challenges to conventional ethical systems. Ethical judgments often rely on competent agents using their capacity for reason to determine good moral behavior. In cases of mental illness these capacities may be hindered and it is hard to determine culpability in such cases. This discussion will examine these issues through the specific lens of addiction and substance abuse.

I will focus on introducing the biological and psychological components of addiction. Using this scientific framework we can discuss the ethical implications and questions that arise. Ideally this will be an open discussion with the conversation developing around the group's interest, but I will maintain a list of specific questions to stimulate discussion.

This discussion will be mainly be based around the book Addiction Neuroethics by Adrian Carter; Wayne Hall; Judy Illes. I've taken the only physical copy from the library, but I think it might be availible in e-book format as well.

http://umass.worldcat.org/title/addiction-neuroethics-the-ethics-of-addiction-neuroscience-research-and-treatment/oclc/731925427/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true

9/20/2013 Time and Purpose in Eriugena's Positive Nothingness

by Nathan Turowsky

Johannes Scottus Eriugena (circa 800-circa 877) was an Irish monk and one of the most original thinkers of the Early Middle Ages. Although he saw himself and was seen as a personally devout and orthodox Christian throughout his life, he often found his work censured by Church authorities on account of the sometimes uncomfortable byways down which he went in his attempts to harmonize various Classical philosophers with Christian doctrine (a project undertaken with a much greater degree of institutional support by the later Scholastics, such as Blessed John Duns Scotus (circa 1266-1308)--who actually was from Scotland; in Eriugena's time Scotia Maior referred to Ireland but by Duns Scotus' time the relevant countries had their currently accepted Latin names). Eriugena's major work is called the Periphyseon and was completed around 867.

One of the most arresting aspects of Eriugena's thought is his unusual set of ideas about teleology. Eriugena concluded that the only logical extension of the Christian doctrines of God's absolute self-sufficiency and omnipotence into this realm was that the universe as a whole has no actual purpose, because, as Terry Eagleton has paraphrased, it was created by 'God, Who, if He exists, does so for no particular reason'. For Eriugena, thus, teleology becomes the question of the functions and goals of particular things within the more or less self-contained, basically ludic and conditional self-manifestation of God. He considers that there are two separate streams of time running simultaneously, an unchanging time in which everything is a purposeless Divine theophany and a corrupting time in which movement, change, and purpose can exist. While Eriugena's philosophical justifications for this cosmology derive primarily from the Bible and from the Neoplatonists, his account of time and telos is deeply resonant with Celtic mythology and especially with Hiberno-Saxon visual art, with its emphasis on oddly kinetic forms in motion within clearly-defined, circumscribed borders.

For Eriugena there are two types of nothingness: nihil per privationem (nothingness through privation) and nihil per excellentiam (nothingness through excelling being). Creation is out of, and purposelessness is within, God's surfeit of positive nothingness.

Russian Shot in Quarrel Over Kant's Philosophy

These people did not practice open thought.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/russian-shot-quarrel-over-kants-philosophy

9/13/2013 Upon the Moral Use of Aesthetic Manners

by Melanie Muller

In “Upon the Moral Use of Aesthetic Manners,” Friedrich Schiller discusses his theory of the intersection between Aesthetics and Morality. Schiller postulates that morality is the course of action that proceeds purely from human reason.  He assumes humans don’t have “an evil will, which must be changed, but only a good one, which is weak.” He examines what he believes to be the intersections between the “sensuous impulse,” the “will,” morality and “taste.”

We will discuss the manner in which Schiller uses these terms, and how they relate to Enlightenment ideas. We will then examine the philosophical system underlying Schiller’s essay and discuss his claims. 

A free copy of the essay can be found here:

http://www.colchestercollection.com/titles/chunk/A/aesthetical-and-philosophical-essays/manners.html