In this paper I defend the Reasonability View: the position that medical professionals seeking a conscientious exemption must state reasons in support of their objection and allow those reasons to be subject to evaluation. Recently, this view has been criticized by Jason Marsh as proposing a standard that is either too difficult to meet or too easy to satisfy. First, I defend the Reasonability View from this proposed dilemma. Then, I develop this view by presenting and explaining some of the (...) central criteria it uses to assess whether a conscientious objection is proper grounds for extending an exemption to a medical practitioner. (shrink)

This paper builds upon previous work in which I argue that we should assess a provider's reasons for his or her objection before granting a conscientious exemption. For instance, if the medical professional's reasoned basis involves an empirical mistake, an accommodation is not warranted. This article poses and begins to address several deep questions about the workings of what I call a reason-giving view: What standard should we use to assess reasons? What policy should we adopt in order to evaluate (...) the reasons offered by medical practitioners in support of their objections? I argue for a reasonability standard to perform the essential function of assessing reasons, and I offer considerations in support of a policy establishing conscientious objector status in medicine. (shrink)

This article argues that practitioners have a professional ethical obligation to dispense emergency contraception, even given conscientious objection to this treatment. This recent controversy affects all medical professionals, including physicians as well as pharmacists. This article begins by analyzing the option of referring the patient to another willing provider. Objecting professionals may conscientiously refuse because they consider emergency contraception to be equivalent to abortion or because they believe contraception itself is immoral. This article critically evaluates these reasons and concludes that (...) they do not successfully support conscientious objection in this context. Contrary to the views of other thinkers, it is not possible to easily strike a respectful balance between the interests of objecting providers and patients in this case. As medical professionals, providers have an ethical duty to inform women of this option and provide emergency contraception when this treatment is requested. (shrink)

Adopting a critical thinking methodology in which critical thinking tools are introduced and applied to medical ethics reading, this book explains the dialogue which is formed by the readings in each chapter and clarifies how the various thinkers are responding to one another in a common discussion. The books' unified approach offers a critical thinking pedagogy, which philosophically and logically pulls the many readings and philosophies together. The book examines an introduction to moral theory and critical thinking tools, while readings (...) address the following issues: surrogacy contracts; abortion; ethical issues at the end of life; genetics and morality; ethics and HIV/AIDS; the relationship between medical professionals and patients; research on human and non-human subjects; allocation of medical resources and justice issues in health care systems. For individuals interested in medical ethics and philosophy. (shrink)

Rule-consequentialism is frequently regarded as problematic since it faces the following powerful dilemma: either rule-consequentialism collapses into act-consequentialism or rule-consequentialism is inconsistent. Recent defenders of this theory such as Brad Hooker provide a careful response to this objection. By explicating the nature and theoretical commitments of rule-consequentialism, I contend that these maneuvers are not successful by offering a new way of viewing the dilemma which retains its force even in light of these recent discussions. The central idea is that even (...) the most well-developed contemporary form of the view is ensnared in the following dilemma: as an agent-neutral consequentialist theory, rule-consequentialism is either inconsistent or it is desperately unmotivated as a form of consequentialism since it is committed to a non-consequentialist form of ultimate moral value. (shrink)

Actions within organizational contexts should be understood differently as compared with actions performed outside of such contexts. This is the case due to the agentic shift, as discussed by social psychologist Stanley Milgram, and the role that systemic factors play in shaping the available alternatives from which individuals acting within institutions choose. The analysis stemming from Milgram’s experiments suggests not simply that individuals temporarily abdicate their moral agency on occasion, but that there is an erosion of agency within organizations. The (...) point about the erosion of agency is deepened in the discussion of a case study which illustrates the difficulty of identifying even the bare “ownership” of actions within organizations. While this is the case, explicating these reasons suggests that both individual actors and firms can bear ethical responsibility within organizational contexts. As part of the effort to present the whole picture, business ethics courses should introduce students to the relevant insights from social psychology and human factors research. (shrink)

Recent survey data gathered from British medical students reveal widespread acceptance of conscientious objection in medicine, despite the existence of strict policies in the UK that discourage conscientious refusals by students to aspects of their medical training. This disconnect demonstrates a pressing need to thoughtfully examine policies that allow conscience objections by medical students; as it so happens, the USA is one country that has examples of such policies. After presenting some background on promulgated US conscience protections and reflecting on (...) their significance for conscience objections by medical students, this paper observes that the dominant approach (following the American Medical Association's conscience clause) is to allow exempted students to instead be evaluated on the basis of alternative curricular activities to learn the associated underlying content. This paper then introduces and discusses an example in which male Muslim students who believe it is wrong to touch members of the opposite sex object to performing physical examinations on female subjects in their medical training. This sort of case, it is argued, causes difficulty for a conscience clause that resolves the dilemma by granting reasonable exemptions in the form of participation in alternative curricular activities: there are cases where one must perform the ‘objectionable’ activity itself in order to learn the necessary content and underlying principles. (shrink)

A powerful objection to impersonal moral theories states that they cannot accommodate the good of friendship. This paper focuses on the problem as it applies to consequentialism and addresses the recent criticism that even the most sophisticated forms of consequentialism are incompatible with genuine friendship. I argue that this objection fails since those who pose this challenge either seriously oversimplify consequentialism's theory of value, misunderstand its theory of practical reason, or put too much weight on the good of friendship itself. (...) I conclude by assessing a contemporary consequentialist response in order to suggest a workable conception of consequentialist friendship. (shrink)

Ancell and Sinnott-Armstrong argue that medical providers possess wide freedoms to determine the scope of their practice, and therefore, prohibiting almost any conscientious objections is a bad idea. They maintain that we could create an acceptable system on the whole which even grants accommodations to discriminatory refusals by healthcare professionals. Their argument is premised upon applying a free market mechanism to conscientious objections in medicine, yet I argue their Market View possesses a number of absurd and troubling implications. Furthermore, I (...) demonstrate that the fundamental logic of their main argument is flawed. Thinkers who wish to address the issues raised in this debate in general or by discriminatory conscience objections in particular should avoid the Market View and instead envisage theories that assess the reasons underlying conscientious refusals in medicine. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anderson claims that states of affairs are merely extrinsically valuable, since we value them only in virtue of the intrinsically valuable persons in those states of affairs. Since it considers states of affairs to be the sole bearers of intrinsic value, Anderson argues that consequentialism is incoherent because it attempts to globally maximize extrinsic value. I respond to this objection by distinguishing between two forms of consequentialist teleology and arguing that Anderson''s claim is either harmless or her argument for (...) the claim is uncompelling. On the first conception of teleology, consequentialists need not hold that states of affairs are the sole bearers of intrinsic value, which allows them to deflect this criticism. On the second account of teleology, even assuming that states of affairs are the sole bearers of intrinsic value, Anderson''s argument does not necessarily defeat such views. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Don Marquis argues that abortion is morally wrong in most cases since it deprives the fetus of the value of its future. I criticize Marquis’s argument for the modified conservative view by adopting an argumentative strategy in which I work within his basic account: if it is granted that his fundamental idea is sound, what follows about the morality of abortion? I conclude that Marquis is faced with a dilemma: either his position must shift towards the extreme conservative view (...) on which abortion is never morally permissible, or he must abandon any recognizably conservative view. This dilemma suggests that Marquis’s view is either deeply implausible or that he cannot use this argument to successfully support his preferred position. (shrink)

Current mainstream approaches to conscientious objection either uphold the standards of public health care by preventing objections or protect the consciences of health‐care professionals by accommodating objections. Public justification approaches are a compromise position that accommodate conscientious objections only when objectors can publicly justify the grounds of their objections. Public justification approaches require objectors and assessors to speak a common normative language and to this end it has been suggested that objectors should be required to cast their objection in terms (...) of public reason. We provide critical support for such a public reason condition and argue that it would be neither too demanding nor too permissive. We also respond to objections that it unfairly favours secular over religious objectors and that public reasons cannot be held with the kind of sincerity thought to characterize conscientious objections. (shrink)

This book argues that a conscientiously objecting medical professional should receive an exemption only if the grounds of an objector's refusal are reasonable. It defends a detailed, contextual account of public reasonability suited for healthcare, which builds from the overarching concept of Rawlsian public reason. The author analyzes the main competing positions and maintains that these other views fail precisely due to their systematic inattention to the grounding reasons behind a conscientious objection; he argues that any such view is plausible (...) to the extent that it mimics the 'reason-giving requirement' for conscience objections defended in this work. Only reasonable objections can defeat the prior professional obligation to assign primacy to patient well-being, therefore one who refuses a patient's request for a legally available, medically indicated, and safe service must be able to explain the grounds of their objection in terms understandable to other citizens within the public institutional structure of medicine. The book further offers a novel policy proposal to deploy the Reasonability View: establishing conscientious objector status in medicine. It concludes that the Reasonability View is a viable and attractive position in this debate. A New Theory of Conscientious Objection in Medicine: Justification and Reasonability will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in bioethics, medical ethics, and philosophy of medicine, as well as thinkers interested in the intersections between law, medical humanities, and philosophy. (shrink)

Defenders of medical professionals’ rights to conscientious objection (CO) regarding emergency contraception (EC) draw an analogy to CO in the military. Such professionals object to EC since it has the possibility of harming zygotic life, yet if we accept this analogy and utilize jurisprudence to frame the associated public policy, those who refuse to dispense EC would not have their objection honored. Legal precedent holds that one must consistently object to all forms of the relevant activity. In the case at (...) hand, then, I argue that these professionals must also oppose morally innocuous practices that may prevent pregnancy after fertilization. These results reveal that such objectors cannot offer a plausible and consistent objection to harming zygotic life. Additionally, there are good reasons to reject the analogy itself. In either case, these findings call into question the case supporting refusals of EC based on scruples. (shrink)

The situationist challenge to global character traits claims that on the basis of findings in social psychology, we should only accept at most the existence of local or context-sensitive traits. In this article I explore a neglected area of J. S. Mill's work to outline an account of context-sensitive traits. This account of traits, coupled with a sophisticated consequentialist ethical framework, suggests an interesting view on which persons govern the circumstances of their actions in order to best promote overall well-being.

Bernard Williams has argued that on a consequentialist moral theory, individuals cannot possess what he calls "integrity." I argue that one central strand of this criticism concerns how persons must think about life-shaping decisions. I interpret "integrity" as a pattern of continuity in an agent's moral decision-making. In order to have integrity an agent must possess a stable character which unifies one's choices. Since a sophisticated consequentialist moral structure can properly value the having of a character on the basis of (...) which agents guide their lives, it can successfully address this criticism. (shrink)

This paper argues that the provider conscience regulation recently put into place in the USA is misguided. The rule is too broad in the scope of protection it affords, and its conception of what constitutes assistance in the performance of an objectionable procedure reveals that it is unworkable in practice. Furthermore, the regulation wrongly treats refusal of other reproductive services as on a par with conscientious objection to participation in abortion. Finally, the rule allows providers to refuse even to discuss (...) “objectionable” options with patients and serves to protect discriminatory refusals of medical care. For all of these reasons, this regulation is unwise. (shrink)

Mary Anne Warren provides a well‐known defense of the liberal position in the abortion debate, yet her argument is subject to the objection that it implies that infanticide is morally permissible. In a postscript to her original article, Warren argues that her position does not commit her to the moral acceptability of infanticide. I argue that the reasoning Warren presents in her postscript on infanticide undermines her original main argument in support of the liberal view: she cannot use this argument (...) to both defend the liberal view on abortion and establish that infanticide is morally wrong. (shrink)

The first edition of this book was published in 1977. At that time the field of thanatology, the study of death and dying, was still reasonably new and was dominated by research done by psychiatrists and social scientists. The most notable person in the field at the time was Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who was widely credited with having brought thanatology into public view with the 1969 publication of her book On Death and Dying. Two research centers on death and dying were (...) gaining national reputations: The Foundation of Thanatology in New York (Austin Kutscher, director), and the Center for Death Education and Research (Robert Fulton, director) at the University of Minnesota. (shrink)

If classical Western theism is correct that God's timeless omniscience is compatible with human free will, then it is incoherent to hold that this God can in any strict sense be immutable and a se as well as omniscient. That is my thesis. ‘Classical theism’ shall refer here to the tradition of philosophical theology centring on such mainstream authors as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. ‘Divine omniscience’ shall mean that the eternal God knows all events as a timeless observer of them. (...) ‘Human free will’ shall mean that human beings are, at least sometimes, self-determining agents who make choices not decisively caused to be what they are by external or internal factors other than the free willing itself – choices that these agents have the capacity and the freedom to make differently than they do. Except where stipulated otherwise, ‘divine immutability’ shall ‘mean that God is neither subject to, nor capable of, change in being, knowing, or willing, since God is immune to external influences, and without internal needs, of the sorts that might give rise to such change. Finally, ‘aseity’ shall be used to underline the divine immunity to external influences, since a being that is wholly a se or self-caused , cannot be open to such influences, cannot be made to be what or how it is by anything other than itself. (shrink)

(1997). Considering moral sensitivity in media ethics courses and research: An essay review by Robert F. Potter. Journal of Mass Media Ethics: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 51-57. doi: 10.1207/s15327728jmme1201_4.

Berkhofer ranges through a vast archive of recent writings by a broad range of authors. He explicates the opposing paradigms and their corresponding dilemmas by presenting in dialogue form the positions of modernists and postmodernists, formalists and deconstructionists, textualists and contextualists.

In a provocative essay, philosopher Jeffrie G. Murphy asks: 'what would law be like if we organized it around the value of Christian love, and if we thought about and criticized law in terms of that value?'. This book brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to address that question. Scholars have given surprisingly little attention to assessing how the central Christian ethical category of love - agape - might impact the way we understand law. This book aims (...) to fill that gap by investigating the relationship between agape and law in Scripture, theology, and jurisprudence, as well as applying these insights to contemporary debates in criminal law, tort law, elder law, immigration law, corporate law, intellectual property, and international relations. At a time when the discourse between Christian and other world views is more likely to be filled with hate than love, the implications of agape for law are crucial. (shrink)

Fully updated and revised, this contemporary classic discusses the powerful moral issues facing corporate America: conflicts of interest, payoffs, trade secrets, insider trading, product safety and product liability, hiring, drug testing, sexual harassment, diversity, reverse discrimination, employee productivity monitoring, Internet/computer privacy, worker safety, whistle-blowing, ethical decision-making, ethical accounting and advertising practices, environmental responsibility, down-sizing, and the conduct of multinational corporations. These are just some of the many topics raised in this versatile text. Enhanced by many new case studies, questions for (...) discussion, and valuable bibliographies, Business Ethics focuses on the issues that will confront decision-makers well into the new century. (shrink)

Robert Dobbin presents a new translation into clear modern English of the first book of Epictetus' Discourses, accompanied by the first ever commentary on the work in English. The Discourses, composed around AD 100, are a key source for ancient Stoicism, one of the most influential schools of thought in Western philosophy.

The nineteenth-century philosopher F. W. J. Schelling exerted considerable influence on Christian theology, although among his contemporaries he is typically assigned a lesser role in this respect than is Hegel or Schleiermacher. During his lifetime his impact was greatest upon Roman Catholic theologians; after his death it was more strongly felt by certain Protestants. I shall not explore instances of Schelling’s actual influence on specific theologians, even though more research could be done on that topic. Instead my purpose is to (...) single out several of Schelling’s ideas that are intrinsically significant for theology, including some not fully utilized by his contemporary or subsequent disciples. Hence I address the systematic topic of Schelling’s potential theological importance rather than the historical topic of his actual influence. The themes discussed derive chiefly from my own interpretation of Schelling and my view of what is important and sound in theology. They pertain more to the philosophical foundations of theology than to the specifics of creedal formulations. But first, a brief comment about Schelling as a philosopher, followed by his own observations on his relation to theology. (shrink)

A new and critical edition of Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie Vorlesungen is in preparation. These important lectures will also appear in English and Spanish translation concurrently with the German edition. Walter Jaeschke of the Hegel-Archiv staff is constructing the German text, to be published by Felix Meiner Verlag ; Peter C. Hodgson of Vanderbilt University is editing the English translation; Ricardo Ferrara of the University of Buenos Aires is editing the Spanish translation. Jaeschke, Hodgson and Ferrara have entered into an agreement regarding (...) common editorial principles for the different language versions. Jaeschke explained the background and some of the guiding principles of the project in a two-part article printed in the 1980 Owl. Hodgson followed the second part of Jaeschke’s article with his own statement of procedures for the English translation. My purpose in this paper is to provide an update to Hodgson’s statement by giving additional information about the new edition, a progress report on work on the English translation, and a foretaste of some of the interesting differences which are emerging as the distinct lecture series become clearly and accurately distinguished from one another for the first time. (shrink)

A new and critical edition of Hegel’s Religionsphilosophie Vorlesungen is in preparation. These important lectures will also appear in English and Spanish translation concurrently with the German edition. Walter Jaeschke of the Hegel-Archiv staff is constructing the German text, to be published by Felix Meiner Verlag ; Peter C. Hodgson of Vanderbilt University is editing the English translation; Ricardo Ferrara of the University of Buenos Aires is editing the Spanish translation. Jaeschke, Hodgson and Ferrara have entered into an agreement regarding (...) common editorial principles for the different language versions. Jaeschke explained the background and some of the guiding principles of the project in a two-part article printed in the 1980 Owl. Hodgson followed the second part of Jaeschke’s article with his own statement of procedures for the English translation. My purpose in this paper is to provide an update to Hodgson’s statement by giving additional information about the new edition, a progress report on work on the English translation, and a foretaste of some of the interesting differences which are emerging as the distinct lecture series become clearly and accurately distinguished from one another for the first time. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that the traditional Augustinian account of the fall is conceptually defective. It offers causal explanations for the first instance of willing evil which violate affirmations of divine goodness and justice integral to Christian thought. Augustine is the most influential spokesperson for the conviction that the first human pair initiated fallenness on the earth by decisions and actions they took within time though indeed very near to time’s beginning. A supporting account, embellished imaginatively by the tradition, enlarges (...) the context to embrace a prior choice of evil by Satan early in his angelic career. The narrative structure of the Genesis tale of Adam and Eve, mistakenly read as a kind of history, converts easily into a doctrine of the fall as an event in time preceded and precipitated by other events in time regarded as its causes. The allure of this causal explanation arises from our natural wish to “understand” how the fall could occur. But by attributing the first sin to angelic or human pride, or collaterally to a supposed imperfection in the first humans as created, Augustine unwittingly shifts the ultimate responsibility for moral evil onto God. This makes creaturely freedom and responsibility into empty notions, thereby subverting the intentionality of the religious belief in fallenness. (shrink)

De Finetti's treatise on the theory of probability begins with the provocative statement PROBABILITY DOES NOT EXIST, meaning that probability does not exist in an objective sense. Rather, probability exists only subjectively within the minds of individuals. De Finetti defined subjective probabilities in terms of the rates at which individuals are willing to bet money on events, even though, in principle, such betting rates could depend on state-dependent marginal utility for money as well as on beliefs. Most later authors, from (...) Savage onward, have attempted to disentangle beliefs from values by introducing hypothetical bets whose payoffs are abstract consequences that are assumed to have state-independent utility. In this paper, I argue that de Finetti was right all along: PROBABILITY, considered as a numerical measure of pure belief uncontaminated by attitudes toward money, does not exist. Rather, what exist are de Finetti's `previsions', or betting rates for money, otherwise known in the literature as `risk neutral probabilities'. But the fact that previsions are not measures of pure belief turns out not to be problematic for statistical inference, decision analysis, or economic modeling. (shrink)

Much of traditional AI exemplifies the explicit representation paradigm, and during the late 1980''s a heated debate arose between the classical and connectionist camps as to whether beliefs and rules receive an explicit or implicit representation in human cognition. In a recent paper, Kirsh (1990) questions the coherence of the fundamental distinction underlying this debate. He argues that our basic intuitions concerning explicit and implicit representations are not only confused but inconsistent. Ultimately, Kirsh proposes a new formulation of the distinction, (...) based upon the criterion ofconstant time processing.The present paper examines Kirsh''s claims. It is argued that Kirsh fails to demonstrate that our usage of explicit and implicit is seriously confused or inconsistent. Furthermore, it is argued that Kirsh''s new formulation of the explicit-implicit distinction is excessively stringent, in that it banishes virtually all sentences of natural language from the realm of explicit representation. By contrast, the present paper proposes definitions for explicit and implicit which preserve most of our strong intuitions concerning straightforward uses of these terms. It is also argued that the distinction delineated here sustains the meaningfulness of the abovementioned debate between classicists and connectionists. (shrink)

The current conflict between the recording industry and a portion of its customers who are involved in illicit copying of music files arose from innovations involving the compression and electronic distribution of files over the internet. This paper briefly describes some of the challenges faced by the recording industry, and examines some of the ethical issues that arise in various industry and consumer responses to the opportunities and threats presented by these innovations. The paper concludes by highlighting the risks associated (...) with responses that threaten further innovation, ultimately reducing the chances of finding solutions that hold appeal for all parties. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures SeriesSeries Editor: Peter C. HodgsonHegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and manuscripts. The (...) original lecture series are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Lectures on the History of PhilosophyVolume II: Greek PhilosophyHegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy offer one of the best points of entry to his philosophical system. The second volume covers a thousand years of ancient Greek philosophy; this is the period to which Hegel devoted by far the most attention, and which he saw as absolutely fundamental for all that came after it. This edition sets forth clearly, and for the first time for the English reader, what Hegel actually said. It forms part of OUP's Hegel Lectures series, presenting accurate new translations accompanied by editorial introductions and annotations.These lectures challenged the antiquarianism of Hegel's contemporaries by boldly contending that the history of philosophy is itself philosophy, not just history. It portrays the journey of reason or spirit through time, as reason or spirit comes in stages to its full development and self-conscious existence, through the successive products of human intellect and activity. Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy proved to be extremely influential on the intellectual history of the past two centuries. These lectures are crucial to understanding Hegel's own systematic philosophy in its constructive aspect, as well as his views on the centrality of reason in human history and culture. The volume on Greek Philosophy covers the first one thousand years, the period to which Hegel devoted by far the most attention, and which he saw as absolutely fundamental for all that came after it. This edition adapts the considerable editorial resources of the German edition that it translates, to the needs of the general reader as well as the serious scholar, so as to constitute an unparalleled resource on this topic in the English language. (shrink)

"Since the end of the Cold War the human face of economics has gained visibility and generated new conversations among economists and other social theorists. The reductive and mechanical "economic systems" that characterized the capitalism-vs.-socialism debates of the mid-20th century have given way to pluralistic ecologies of economic provisioning in which complex agents cooperate via heterogeneous forms of production and exchange. This book examines how this pluralistic turn in economic thinking bears upon the venerable social-theoretic division of cooperative activity into (...) separate spheres of impersonal Gesellschaft and ethically thick Gemeinschaft. This book facilitates critical exchange among economists, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and other social theorists by exploring the overlapping notions of cooperation, rationality, identity, reciprocity, trust, and exchange that emerge from multiple traditions of thought within and across their respective disciplines"--. (shrink)

Manuscript reviews are intended to be objective, empirical assessments of the scientific worth of papers submitted for publication. However, critics have charged that manuscript reviews are unreliable, unconstructive, and biased in a number of ways . A review of the empirical literature in this area indicates: that inter-reviewer reliability in manscript assessments is clearly inadequate, that reviewer bias can sometimes influence manuscript assessments, and that there is a dearth of empirical data supporting the predictive and discriminant validity of manuscript assessment (...) procedures. Based on the available evidence it seems that manuscript reviews are more strongly influenced by chance factors than by systematic reviewer or editorial bias. Nonetheless, our desire to conceptualize manuscript reviews in psychology as objective, empirical assessments has produced a number of undesired results. An alternative approach to manuscript review based on an adversery model rather than a scientific model is presented. Advantages of an adversary model as a method for identifying sound research are discussed. Changes in current publication policies that would allow research findings to be disseminated more efficiently are also described. (shrink)

In their provocative 1988 paper, Fodor and Pylyshyn issued a formidable challenge to connectionists, i.e. to provide a non‐classical explanation of the empirical phenomenon of systematicity in cognitive agents. Since the appearance of F&P's challenge, a number of connectionist systems have emerged which prima facie meet this challenge. However, Fodor and McLaughlin (1990) advance an argument, based upon a general principle of nomological necessity, to show that one of these systems (Smolensky's) could not satisfy the Fodor‐Pylyshyn challenge. Yet, if Fodor (...) and McLaughlin's analysis is correct, it is doubtful whether any existing connectionist system would fare better than Smolensky's. In the view of Fodor and McLaughlin, humans and classical architectures display systematicity as a matter of nomological necessity (necessity by virtue of natural law), but connectionist architectures do not. However, I argue that the Fodor‐Pylyshyn‐McLaughlin appeal to nomological necessity is untenable. There is a sense in which neither classical nor connectionist architectures possess nomological (or‘nomic’) necessity. However, the sense in which classical architectures do possess nomic necessity applies equally well to at least some connectionist architectures. Representational constituents can have causal efficacy within both classical and connectionist architectures. (shrink)