This paper sketches an account of reparative justice for climate refugees, focusing on total land loss due to sea-level rise. I begin by outlining the harm of this loss in terms of self-determination and cultural heritage. I then consider, first, who is owed these reparations? Second, who should pay such reparations? Third, in what form should the reparations be paid? I end with thoughts on the project of reparative justice more generally, arguing that such obligations do not depend upon a perfect account of how reparations might be fulfilled; we simply have an obligation to shoot the arrow as close to the target as we can.

Hume's account of belief is understood to be inspired by allegedly incompatible motivations, one descriptive and expressing Hume's naturalism, the other normative and expressing Hume's epistemological aims. This understanding assumes a particular way in which these elements are distinct: an assumption that I dispute. I suggest that the explanatory-naturalistic aspects of Hume's account of belief are not incompatible with the normative-epistemological aspects. Rather, at least for some central cases of belief formation that Hume discusses at length, S's coming to believe that p can be explained in a way that vindicates S's belief that p.

The hold of the fatalistic reasoning that Aristotle criticizes is dependent, first, on the idea, articulated by Frege, that the real candidates for truth and falsity are something other than particular contingent happenings such as affirmations or thinkings, and, second, on the idea that the demand for speculative reflection overrides any demand for practical deliberation. Standard challenges to the reasoning embody the same presuppositions and so simply perpetuate the core confusions. They do so most fundamentally in the assumption that we need a ‘metaphysical’ grounding for our idea of ourselves as agents who have influence on the course of events.

In order to consider the question of whether empire is a subject for philosophy, I do three things. I sketch an original typology of three types of state, which I call polis, imperium and cosmopolis, in order to show that the second is an important philosophical conception which lies behind the terminology of empire and imperialism. I also consider modern theories of empire and imperialism in order to indicate some of their limitations as theories. And finally I indicate that it is important even for philosophers to recognise that all imperial terminology emerges out of a very complicated history in which the concept of imperium has been extended and distorted in meaning, so that, at best, any good theory of empire or imperialism can only be some sort of recapitulation of that history. Neither the second nor the third of these claims undermines the claim of imperium to be a concept of the state which is of great political and philosophical significance.

This paper starts by examining the language used in some well known scriptural passages where the importance of mercy or compassion is stressed. Such passages underline the ethical importance of a direct, physically and emotionally involved response. This leads on to a critique of the shortcomings of approaches to ethics which advocate the impersonal promotion of welfare; our lives as ethical beings depend intimately on the immediate responses arising from our encounters with others in our day-to-day lives. The paper then further explores the special status of loving kindness and mercy in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and argues that secular ethical systems, whether grounded in human nature or in the supposed requirements of rationality, are unlikely to be able to underwrite this kind of status. The final section reflects further on the ‘cosmic’ significance of love in a theistic worldview.

After (1) a brief introduction I (2) compare accounts of what it is to say something I find in Plato, Frege and Grice, and I distinguish linguistic from practical meaning and words that signify things from ‘syncategorematic’ or ‘grammatical’ words. I then (3) argue that the relation between a signifying word and what it signifies must be understood in terms of two complementary acts, already recognised in antiquity, quantifying and predicating. Discussing quantification (4), I show how problems about universals can be avoided by accepting Aristotle's distinction between possible and actual existence. Discussing predication (5), I defend Aristotle's view that there are more forms of predication than one, and consider this issue in connection with non-mathematical discourse.

Challenged by Lord Kelvin's claims that earth and sun were too young to give evolution sufficient time to do its work, especially in the human case, where care for the weak blunts the edge of natural selection, Darwin leaned on Lamarckian thoughts to accelerate the process. The mental and moral traits crowning human distinctiveness, he urged, arose through sexual selection. But promiscuity, infanticide, early betrothals, and female drudgery undermined these effects in “savage races.” In the inevitable decline and ultimate extinction of the “melanin races” Darwin believed he could observe human evolution underway before his eyes.

Discussion of the soul in this essay departs from the concept of the soul that for thousands of years has occupied the attention of philosophers and theologians and pervaded religious discourse. The author is concerned with what William James referred to as ‘the popular soul,’ the soul as it is invoked by expressions such as ‘an expansive soul,’ ‘a soulless person,’ ‘soul-mate,’ and ‘that melody touched my soul.’ Skepticism with regard to the existence of this soul is without warrant. How this soul comes into being and develops; what its essential features are; how the world, when the soul is engaged, is transformed; what its relationship is to one's conscience; its importance in a human life; its connections to purity and perfection, to silence; its survival upon death; and the perils posed today to its development and existence are the principal topics considered.

John Rawls’ gamification of justice leads him – along with many other monist political philosophers, not least Ronald Dworkin – to fail to take politics seriously enough. I begin with why we consider games frivolous and then show how Rawls’ theory of justice is not merely analogous to a game, as he himself seems to claim, but is in fact a kind of game. As such, it is harmful to political practice in two ways: one as regards the citizens who participate directly in it, and the other as regards those who do no more than follow it.