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It is a central thesis of neo‐liberalism that social justice is an incoherent moral ideal and should play no part in proper identification of the real purposes and scope of the state. Social justice is central to both Social Democracy and Socialism and the critique of social justice is crucial for the neo‐liberal claim to differentiate itself in a categorical way from these other political, social, and economic positions. The chapter looks in detail at the different arguments used by neo‐liberal thinkers to criticize social justice. It is also part of the neo‐liberal position that social justice as a policy aim cannot be made compatible with the idea of the rule of law. The reasons for this are explored in detail.

Elizabeth Anscombe, Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was a philosopher who worked at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Her published works include Intention (1957, 1963, 2000) and An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1959). Obituary by Jenny Teichman.

The chapter examines the main argument for, and the presuppositions of the claim that intentional actions are actions taken in, and because of, a belief that there is some good in them. An analysis of intentional actions, and of action for a (normative) reason, followed by a consideration of a number of objections to the thesis of the Guise of the Good force various revisions and refinements of the thesis yielding a defensible version of it. It is argued that the revised thesis is supported by the same argument that inspired the Guise of the Good from the beginning and that the thesis plays a crucial role in uniting theories of action, rationality, and normativity.

This chapter looks at legal dilemmas in relation to representation, and the question of how and whether law is concerned with the intention of the person producing or circulating an image. It looks at the case of a case of a T-shirt in Hong Kong which made reference to gangster culture, a counterfeit artist who made images or partial reproductions of currency, the idea of words and images that cause hurt or harm (and might be forbidden under a tort of racial insult), and the notion of speech as a form of social action. This can be hate speech on US campuses, the burning of the United States flag, swearing, pornography, etc. the key question is how law can and should allocate responsibility for meaning between the utterer and the utterer's presumed intention, the medium and the addressee, in cases where some taboo is breached.

This chapter argues that the phenomenon of conversational exercitives generalizes. It is not just verbal contributions to conversations that enact norms; verbal contributions to other norm-governed activities also do so. Such covert exercitives are developed and the complex role of intention is clarified and explored. It is also argued that the covert enacting of a permissibility fact (by a covert or conversational exercitive) does not depend on the communication of the intention to enact that permissibility fact. As a result, such exercitives are not a communicative (illocutionary) phenomenon. Rather, they constitute what is here called a parallel act.

The six chapter presents a thought experiment that examines why flexible social cognition may have been evolutionarily preserved. It introduces the human capacity for deception as a possible situational factor that promoted flexible social cognition related to human migratory patterns during the ancestral past. It examines the interplay between the self and social groups, before revisiting the thought experiment set in modern society instead of human’s ancestral past. It then explores deception, intention, and complex mental life as situational factors that would affect the outcome of the thought experiment in this modern context.

Being the Change explores how intentional communities such as ecovillages, cohousing communities, and Catholic worker houses have tested alternative models of eating, building, and governing and what these communities can teach the rest of us about sustainable and harmonious living. The introduction lays out the book’s central arguments, introduces the communities, and highlights the language of intention, that we can be intentional about nonviolence, participatory democracy, and voluntary simplicity in our communities. Communities including Catholic Worker houses and farms, ecovillages, and cohousing communities illustrate how some communities have translated these values into practice.

There are several ways in which one can understand action, intention and emotion of others. There is however only one way in which others can be understood “from inside”. This way is based on the activation of the mirror mechanism. When an individual sees an action done by another individual, mirror neurons are activated. This activation ignites a complex motor network that transforms sensory information into a motor copy of the observed action. This activation is similar to that endogenously elicited during motor execution or during emotions determined by natural stimuli. In this chapter we will illustrate the mirror mechanism and discuss the possible relation between the mirror mechanism and autism.

The first chapter aims to reconstruct the rabbinic paradigm of sacrifice as a religious practice, and to examine how the rabbis understand the workings and value of the sacrificial process. Its point of departure is the biblical model of sacrifice, which is an interactive model in essence. In contrast, the chapter argues, the rabbis reconfigure the sacrificial process in a distinctly and emphatically non-interactive model by underplaying both the giver and receiver in the process. This chapter focuses on the role of the offerer (or “owner”) in rabbinic sacrificial legislation, arguing that the rabbis significantly restrict the function and agency of individual offerers within the sacrificial process, both in terms of physical participation and in terms of mental impact, and thereby create a model of sacrifice that is explicitly non-personal and non-communicative.

This chapter discusses the significance of the term natura in John’s works and the notion of ‘living in accordance with nature’ - a guideline borrowed from the works of Cicero. It compares John’s views to those of his contemporaries, illustrating how he transformed the Ciceronian trope into one that had direct application in a Christian context. It examines the role played by reason in this transformation, and looks particularly at the example of intention to illustrate how the interior character of the individual was the principal factor in determining the worth of an act.

This essay traces the changes and developments of the kinds of criticism and critical assumptions brought to bear on Classical literature in particular from the mid to end of the twentieth century. Marx, Freud, historicism, feminism, anthropology, sociology are all shown to have refined the previously heavily philological and grammatical study of ancient texts. Some theories are rejected as inappropriate, others shown to be useful with proper application, especially intention. Classical Humanism is advocated as the study of texts to reveal both the differences and abiding similarities between people of different ages and civilisations, often shown in shared concerns in their literature.

Chapter 2 applies the strategic interpretation outlined previously to US foreign policy on Syria, explicitly understood as a reference to Obama’s redline. It demonstrates that this is not the hardline ultimatum it was made out to be; but is in fact a calculated construct that expresses Obama’s own preferences concerning US involvement in the crisis. Specifically, it analyses Obama’s real intentions in setting the redline to reveal that these have been misinterpreted. More specifically, that pre-existing ideas surrounding the chemical weapons taboo have caused Obama’s statement to be misconstrued as a be-all-and-end-all of US foreign policy on Syria. It examines the wider policy context at the time to demonstrate that this interpretation was diametrically opposed to Obama’s professed position and that the redline actually comprises a much softer and moderate allusion to the taboo.

Chapter 1 supplies an essential description of manuscript and print cultures in the Romantic period. It probes the attempts by book historians, manuscript scholars, and textual editors to establish guidelines for understanding modern literary manuscripts, that is, manuscripts created in the age of print. It questions conceptions of scribal culture that rest upon the scholar’s capacity to discern authorial intention, and that exclude from consideration those manuscripts intended for print. Donald Reiman, in his categorisation of modern manuscripts into three groups – private, confidential or social, and public – relies upon an editor’s ability to determine the intended audience of any given manuscript. However, as this chapter demonstrates, intention is rarely discernible. This chapter grounds its theoretical analysis in a detailed survey of the literary writing and material practices of Charlotte Smith and Dorothy Wordsworth, two authors who have long been regarded as belonging, respectively and exclusively, to the divided worlds of print and script.

This chapter describes the varieties of behaviour exhibited by plants, all of which indicates a remarkable degree of sensory perception, assessment, forecasting, and purpose. Higher plants can discriminate among different environments and choose those that are more beneficial. Once decisions are initially made, they can be corrected after due assessment. Much research shows that plants have the ability to sense each other and avoid entanglement. Competition from other plants causes growth to be redirected away from competitors. Alternatively, phenotypic changes are used to outstrip competitors. Various chemicals can be sensed, including numerous volatiles, and growth can be directed along a gradient of them. Light or mineral gradients are equally used to direct to better growth resources. Behaviour to herbivores, disease pests, and various stresses can be modified by priming. On receipt of a first signal, subsequent responses are faster and larger in the primed plant. Habituation and conditioned behaviour have also been recorded. The ability to investigate, search, survey, examine, and discover is also reported in the literature. Much plant response requires an assessment of likely futures and is active, rather than passive. Phenotypic adjustment is slow, assessing a potential future is essential to avoid the response arriving when the original signal or environment has fundamentally changed. Such behaviour is purposeful, goal-directed, and probably intentional. Finally, plants can assess cost against benefits in situations that may require multiple possible decisions. Although phenotypic adjustment is considered irreversible, except for abscission, at the molecular level, behaviour is reversible.

In Chapter 9, I examine the musical elements used to convey the narrative of the text: the melodies of the trope, dynamics and ornamentation. I go on to consider subjective aesthetics judgments that congregants make in the reception of the reading: gauging the reader’s intention (kavanah) and the reader’s ability to create a “sense of occasion” when chanting. I then step into the congregation and consider the reception of chant. I ask worshippers, “What are you actually doing during the Torah reading?” Finally, I consider two contemporary innovations—Bibliodrama and Storahtelling—that have been developed to promote interactive engagement with the congregation during the Torah service.

Chapter 6 argues that intentions are desires combined with means–end beliefs. This desire–belief account explains the role of intentions in both rational and irrational deliberation. Desire directs attention towards possible means for attaining its object, explaining the role of intentions in planning. Deliberation ends if we lack sufficient attentional resources, allowing for quick action but also for ill-considered and irrational decisions. Desire causes pleasure and displeasure as we think of its objects, explaining experiences of pleasure and displeasure in revising intentions. Joint intentions share these features of individual intentions, suggesting that they’re made of individual intentions which in turn are made of desire–belief pairs.