Discussions of George Berkeley often dismiss his Notebooks remarks that (1) bodies are powers that cause perceivers to have thoughts, and (2) bodies exist even when they are not perceived. I have previously noted these claims but have not explained how bodies are infinitely linked as thoughts (vs. ideas), and Melissa Frankel treats bodies as archetypes perceived individually by God but does not explain how they are individuated. I argue that because bodies identify objects only for finite minds, they are derivative powers by which individuated objects are related to one another infinitely.

Objectivist naturalists about life's meaning regard it as implicating no world but the natural one, and yet as deriving from more than just subjective attitudes or interests. Such naturalists must obviously deny prominent religious conceptions of meaning. But must they further deny that it can be found in religious pursuits? In this article, I defend a negative answer by arguing that, contrary to a prima facie plausible consideration in support of a positive answer, and by many objectivist naturalists’ own lights, the meaning of life can be found in pursuits predicated on false belief.

Gilles Deleuze est, parmi les penseurs français contemporains, celui ayant démontré la plus grande sensibilité à l’égard de la culture québécoise en intégrant quelques-unes de ses forces révolutionnaires dans son œuvre. C'est ce qu'illustre la première partie de l'article en faisant référence à des figures culturelles marquantes discutées par Deleuze : Jack Kérouac, Pierre Perrault, Michèle Lalonde, Norman McLaren et Alexis le Trotteur. L'article explore ensuite la réception de Deleuze au Québec dans et à l'extérieur des milieux universitaires en montrant que la pensée deleuzienne a pris part à la contre-culture avant d'acquérir une visibilité au sein des départements de philosophie.

I argue that the use of elected political representatives undermines the political equality of citizens. Having elected representatives politically stand-in for individual constituents makes ordinary citizens the political inferiors of their representatives. This in turn creates democratically problematic social inequality between elected politicians and their constituents. I then offer an alternative to representative politicians that does not face the avatar of the people problem: representative mini-publics. Through these bodies, we can achieve a representative system without a class of political elites, where citizens share the responsibilities and powers of government as equals.

Thomas Taylor's parody of Mary Wollstonecraft's support for rights of women and humans raises a question: does his satire unwittingly propose a defence of animal rights found in Wollstonecraft's arguments? While Wollstonecraft's later works do not mention animal rights, her early educational writings offer arguments on animal ethics. These works explore the value of animals from moral, theological, and consequentialist perspectives, emphasizing both their instrumental and inherent value. This article argues that Wollstonecraft's moral psychology and theology highlight a benevolent attitude towards animals, underscoring their value beyond their utility.

Afin d'encourager la réflexion sur l'impact de la résistance interne dans la théorie du mouvement au XIVe siècle, je propose d'examiner ici l’évolution du concept chez l'universitaire parisien Nicole Oresme. Dans sa Physique, le penseur présente une position qui ne paraît pas tout à fait aboutie et qui soulève quelques questions en lien avec les qualités motrices des différents éléments constituant les mobiles. Cette situation devient d'autant plus évidente lorsque sa position change, plus tard, dans ses questions sur le traité Du ciel. Oresme semble alors encore moins enclin à accepter l'idée d'une résistance interne dans le mouvement.

Sophia Moreau's Faces of Inequality adopts a provocative philosophical methodology: centring the experiences of victims of discrimination, and the basic contours of anti-discrimination law, in developing an account of wrongful discrimination. If, however, we take seriously sceptical accounts of law developed within feminist and critical race scholarship, we begin to see a tension within Moreau's methodological dyad: if victims of discrimination often experience discrimination law as hostile and disbelieving, how can both be treated as authoritative? This contribution will explore this tension as it emerges in Faces of Inequality, in light of Mari Matsuda's theory of “multiple consciousness.”

In Faces of Inequality, Sophia Moreau puts forward a pluralistic theory of how discrimination wrongs people. I approach Moreau's ideas not as a legal philosopher or theorist, but as an empirical and socio-legal scholar of equality law. In this commentary, I pick up on five provocations that emerge for me from Moreau's work: on reasonable accommodations, on comparison in equality law, on the public/private divide, on the justification of discrimination, and on discrimination as a personal wrong. While Moreau's work is grounded in the common themes or shared features that emerge from equality laws across jurisdictions, I consider what these themes mean for the uncommon ground, drawing on exceptional developments in discrimination law in some Australian jurisdictions, and our experience with the “exceptional” protected characteristic of age.

In this Reply to Critics, I respond to essays by Professors Alysia Blackham, Jessica Eisen, Pablo Gilabert, Andrea Sangiovanni, Dale Smith, Iyiola Solanke, and Daniel Viehoff on the theory of wrongful discrimination developed in my book, Faces of Inequality. Among the topics I discuss are: the relationship between equality and discrimination, the role of social subordination in my theory of wrongful discrimination, and methodology in discrimination theory.

Monism and pluralism are not only used to describe the ways in which international law becomes part of a domestic legal system but can also be applied to scholarship that seeks to explain the messiness of discrimination. According to Sophia Moreau's pluralist theory, the wrongfulness of discrimination can be summarized as three types of treatment: subordination, restriction, and exclusion. In this contribution, I will explore the role that power plays in her theory; while power is explicitly discussed in relation to subordination, it is less apparent from restriction and exclusion. However, as I will argue, power is a crucial element underpinning all forms of discrimination and all protected grounds.

Sophia Moreau's wide-ranging and nuanced book defends a pluralist view of wrongful discrimination. I argue three points. First, I argue that Moreau's account of deliberative freedom does not provide a distinct ground for objecting to discrimination. Second, I argue that there is not as wide a gap between her view and expressivism as she makes there out to be. Third, there is an intriguing gap in the argument that deserves further exploration: Moreau never provides us with an account of when and why social subordination is wrong.

At the heart of Sophia Moreau's theory of wrongful discrimination is the moral duty to treat others as equals. This article raises some challenges regarding the contours of this duty and suggests some ways to make the theory stronger. In particular, it suggests that we incorporate a cosmopolitan view of the duty's scope, that we illuminate the features at the basis of individuals’ equal moral status to determine its grounds, and that we identify some considerations about important interests to articulate its contents. The relation between Moreau's theory and human rights discourse is also briefly examined, and more engagement with the latter is recommended.

In Faces of Inequality, Sophia Moreau offers a pluralist theory of discrimination, according to which discriminatory conduct involves one or more of (at least) three types of wrong. She claims, further, that each of these wrongs represents a failure to treat some people as the equal of others. I argue that this further claim is mistaken. I also suggest that there may be no need for a pluralist theory of discrimination to identify a property that is shared by the different types of wrong recognised by the theory (beyond the fact that each is present in cases of wrongful discrimination).

Sophia Moreau, in her important book, offers an insightful account of (one strand of) the wrong of discrimination based on the evil of subordination. My symposium contribution seeks to clarify the structure of Moreau's account of subordination and its normative and axiological status. On one plausible view, subordination is fundamentally bad or wrong. On another view, subordination is a distinctive social phenomenon, which is bad or wrong only derivatively. I will outline each view, and consider the implications each has for certain issues central to Moreau's book.

Alberto Voltolini advocates a syncretistic account of fictional entities, asserting that it satisfies all the desiderata for a suitable account of fictional entities. This article presents an alternative account of fictional characters that meets these criteria, while circumventing the problems with Voltolini's account. On my Leibnizian antirealist account, a fictional character can be identified by the collection of predicates attributed to its name. And this account offers the benefit of the bundle theory, avoiding the issue of bearers of fictional names, while also explaining why a fictional character is more than just a collection of predicates.

David Chalmers argues that virtual reality is a genuine kind of reality. In one of its readings, this “virtual realism” states that virtual entities ontologically depend on real digital entities. This article explores that suggestion and offers a novel account of the dependence of the virtual on the digital. Drawing on Lynne Rudder Baker's theory of constitution, we contend that virtual objects should be seen as constituted by digital objects, when these are placed in certain favourable circumstances. We explore the rationale and implications of this view, which we see as a promising form of virtual realism.

L'opposition entre contrainte et libre nécessité a conduit nombre de commentateurs de Spinoza à concevoir la libération éthique comme une reconquête de soi contre les aliénations causées par l'extériorité, et à confondre plus ou moins explicitement contrainte et contrariété de la puissance d'agir. L'analyse du mot coactus dans le texte spinoziste montre que les modes finis ne peuvent être et ne peuvent se libérer que par et dans la contrainte, qui n'est pas forcément contrariante. Une telle analyse rejoint celles des sociologues Émile Durkheim et Pierre Bourdieu.

John Rawls est souvent perçu comme un partisan de politiques redistributives visant à apaiser les conséquences d'une économie capitaliste qu'il ne remettrait pas en cause. Cet article montre qu'il s'agit là d'un préjugé et donne un aperçu de la transformation du paysage des entreprises qu'impliquerait une société juste aux yeux de Rawls. Nous commentons les régimes économiques qu'il esquisse dans son œuvre et rappelons que le libéralisme égalitaire a en vérité des implications profondes et souvent insoupçonnées en ce qui concerne la propriété et la gestion des entreprises. Pour Rawls, la démocratie de propriétaires implique que les citoyens possèdent tout au long de leur vie des parts sociales dans les entreprises tandis que le socialisme libéral suppose la nationalisation des moyens de production et la socialisation de leur gestion.

This article aims to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of inquiry. I start with some common desiderata for any theory of inquiry. I then categorize inquiry as a structured process. By focusing on its essential components, I advance a new characterization of inquiry as a combination of questioning attitudes guiding actions. Finally, I turn to the recent objection that questioning attitudes are not necessary for inquiry. I argue that inquiry is a structured process essentially constituted by questioning attitudes having two precise functional roles, initiating and guiding the deployment of cognitive capacities towards an epistemic goal.

Some responses to analogies between abortion and infanticide appeal to Judith Jarvis Thomson's argument for the permissibility of abortion. I argue that these responses fail because a parallel argument can be constructed for the permissibility of infanticide. However, an argument on the grounds of a right to choose to become a parent can maintain that abortion is permissible but infanticide is not by recognizing the normative significance and nature of parenthood.