The present paper constitutes a development of the position that illness, whether bodily or mental, should be analyzed as an incapacitating failure of bodily or mental capacities, respectively, to realize their functions. The paper undertakes this development by responding to two critics. It addresses first Szasz’s continued claims that (1) physical illness is the paradigm concept of illness and (2) a philosophical analysis of mental illness does not shed any light on the social and legal role of the idea. Then, (...) in reply to Wakefield, the aim is to defend the account as an interpretation of Aristotle and to argue that this Aristotelian view of mental illness is preferable to one that rests on a supposed value free account of human function. More generally the discussion points to the fact that both Wakefield and Szasz rely on a number of metaphysical assumptions about the supposedly empirical nature of medical diagnosis, about the relation between facts and values, and about mind and body (among others), which are open to challenge. In particular the paper indicates an aristotelian approach to the fusion, in the natural world, of so-called facts and values, and the relevance of this fusion to the analysis of the concept of illness. This suggests the debate over distinct conceptions of that concept must both illumine and be illuminated by these deeper metaphysical questions. (shrink)

This is a review of the challenging book in which Larry Alexander and Kimberly Ferzan propose sweeping revisions to the structure of substantive criminal law.

Professor Whitty has endorsed the consensus that research into education is empirical social science, distinguishing ‘educational research’ which seeks directly to influence practice, and ‘education research’ that has substantive value but no necessary practical application.The status of the science here is problematic. The positivist approach is incoherent and so supports neither option. Critical educational science is virtually policy-inert. The interpretive approach is empirically sound but, because of the value component in education, does not support education research either, or account for (...) this component.A solution to the latter problem is sought in the debate between Carr and Hirst on the relationship between philosophy and education. This shows Carr making claims that rely on a conception of philosophy that he rejects, while Hirst insists on this conception, uses it to justify practical claims, but denies that this is possible.To achieve a practically relevant analysis of educational research, both need to include second-order, normative, conceptual enquiry into the philosophies that drive educational policy-making and partly regulate teaching methodology. Deweyan, first-order, ‘reflective practice’ needs, then, to be supplemented with second-order reflection.Educational research is philosophy- not science-driven, and is value-led. Consequently, it has the status not of scientific discovery but of practical recommendation. (shrink)

Scholarship on Aristotle’s NICOMACHEAN ETHICS (hereafter “the Ethics”) flourishes in an almost unprecedented fashion. In the last ten years, universities in North America have produced on average over ten doctoral dissertations a year that discuss the practical philosophy that Aristotle espouses in his Nicomachean Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, and Politics. Since the beginning of the millennium there have been three new translations of the entire Ethics into English alone, several more that translate parts of the work into English and other modern (...) languages, and half a dozen collections of new articles discussing Aristotle’s Ethics. Such an outpouring of scholarship has produced an almost unmanageable wave of books, articles, and reviews. Through my topical bibliography, I seek to organize this wealth of scholarly writing so as to make it manageable both to scholars working across the disciplines of philosophy, classics, history, and politics, and to scholars pursuing theses on specific topics within the Ethics. The bibliography takes as its model and is much indebted to that compiled by Barnes, Schofield, and Sorabji in their Articles on Aristotle, Volume 2: Ethics and Politics (1977), which was further updated and incorporated into the complete bibliography to all of Aristotle’s writings in Barnes’s Cambridge Companion to Aristotle (1995). Although I have taken guidance from their model, my bibliography differs in one main respect. Whereas Barnes et al. were more selective and annotated their bibliography, I have been more comprehensive in my inclusion of items. I have sought to include all books and journal articles concerned with the Ethics written in English over the last 120 years; additionally, I have sought to include representative and central works of scholarship written on the Ethics in French, German, and Italian during the same period of time. (shrink)

Most contemporary philosophers of action accept Aristotle’s view that actions involve movements generated by an internal cause. This is reflected in the wide support enjoyed by the Causal Theory of Action (CTA), according to which actions are bodily movements caused by mental states. Some critics argue that CTA suffers from the Problem of Disappearing Agents (PDA), the complaint that CTA excludes agents because it reduces them to mere passive arenas in which certain events and processes take place. Extant treatments of (...) PDA, most notably those of Michael Bratman and David Velleman, interpret the problem as a challenge to CTA’s ability to capture the role of rational capacities like deliberation and reflection in the etiology of human action. I argue that PDA admits of another interpretation, one that arises when we appreciate that the exercise of higher rational capacities in action presupposes possession of a prior lower-level capacity for basic self-movement – the power to initiate and control one’s bodily behavior. Bolstering CTA so that it accommodates richer exercises of practical thought – as Bratman and Velleman do – will not resolve PDA unless CTA already captures this basic agential power. Adequately responding to PDA, therefore, requires answering a question unaddressed by current responses: How do bodily movements caused by sub-agential items like mental states count as movements actively performed by the whole agent? I argue that CTA can answer this question by adopting a normative account of the nature of self-moving agents. On this view, self-moving agents are teleologically constituted, meaning (1) their nature and proper function derives from their characteristic ends and aims, and (2) the nature and proper function of their parts depend on these ends and aims. Basic self-movement consists of movements caused by a sub-agential part whose own proper function is to generate behavior that constitutes or contributes to the pursuit of the agent’s overall proper function. After showing how this picture applies to artifactual and collective agents (i.e., robots and teams), I extend the account to organic agents (human beings) by sketching a broadly Aristotelian picture of the nature of living things. (shrink)

The debate between ‘inclusive’ and ‘dominant’ interpretations of Aristotle's concept of happiness (eudaimonia) has become one of the thorniest problems of Aristotle interpretation. In this paper, I attempt to solve this problem by presenting a multi-step argument for an ‘all-inclusive’ thesis, i.e., the Aristotelian philosopher or contemplator, in the strict sense, is someone who already possesses all the intellectual virtues (except technē), all the moral virtues (by way of the possession of phronēsis), and considerable other goods. If this thesis is (...) correct, the inclusive and dominant interpretations will converge, for the philosopher turns out to be the happiest human being both in the inclusive and dominant senses. (shrink)

Issue Title: Moral Luck, Social Networking Sites, and Trust on the Web I argue that the problem of 'moral luck' is an unjustly neglected topic within Computer Ethics. This is unfortunate given that the very nature of computer technology, its 'logical malleability', leads to ever greater levels of complexity, unreliability and uncertainty. The ever widening contexts of application in turn lead to greater scope for the operation of chance and the phenomenon of moral luck. Moral luck bears down most heavily (...) on notions of professional responsibility, the identification and attribution of responsibility. It is immunity from luck that conventionally marks out moral value from other kinds of values such as instrumental, technical, and use value. The paper describes the nature of moral luck and its erosion of the scope of responsibility and agency. Moral luck poses a challenge to the kinds of theoretical approaches often deployed in Computer Ethics when analyzing moral questions arising from the design and implementation of information and communication technologies. The paper considers the impact on consequentialism; virtue ethics; and duty ethics. In addressing cases of moral luck within Computer Ethics, I argue that it is important to recognise the ways in which different types of moral systems are vulnerable, or resistant, to moral luck. Different resolutions are possible depending on the moral framework adopted. Equally, resolution of cases will depend on fundamental moral assumptions. The problem of moral luck in Computer Ethics should prompt us to new ways of looking at risk, accountability and responsibility.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]. (shrink)

The concepts of ‘being‘, ‘substance‘ and ‘form‘ are central to Aristotle‘s metaphysics. According to him, there are different modes of being, and of all these different modes of being, substance is the primary mode of being, and First Philosophy is especially concerned with the mode of being which belongs to substances. Again, he tries to give an analysis of what a substance is in terms of the concept of form, and claims that it is essence or form that may be (...) called substance in the truest and fullest sense. Thus we see that the concepts of ‘being‘, ‘substance‘ and ‘form‘ are intimately related. This paper is an attempt to analyze clearly what Aristotle means by these three important concepts. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#61-62; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2017 P 43-52. (shrink)

This paper aims to identify several interpretive problems posed by the final part ofDAII.11 (423b27–424 a10), where Aristotle intertwines the thesis that a sense is like a ‘mean’ and an explanation for the existence of a ‘blind spot’ related to the sense of touch, adding the further contention that we are capable of discriminating because the mean ‘becomes the other opposite’ in relation to the perceptible property being perceived. To solve those problems, the paper explores a novel interpretation of Aristotle’s (...) claims, arguing that they describe a homeostatic physiological reaction by which the sensory apparatus responds to perceptible stimuli. According to the proposed interpretation, such homeostatic reaction constitutes a necessary condition for perceiving what Aristotle refers to as ‘proper’ perceptible features, which include properties like ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ as well as colors and sounds. (shrink)

I provide a survey of the contents of the works belonging to Aristotle's Organon in order to define their nature, in the light of his declared intentions and of other indications (mainly internal ones) about his purposes. No unifying conception of logic can be found in them, such as the traditional one, suggested by the very title Organon, of logic as a methodology of demonstration. Logic for him can also be formal logic (represented in the main by the De Interpretatione), (...) axiomatized syllogistic (represented in the main by the Prior Analytics) and a methodology of dialectical and rhetorical discussion. The consequent lack of unity presented by those works does not exclude that both the set of works called Analytics and the set of works concerning dialectic (Topics and Sophistici Elenchi) form a unity, and that a certain priority is attributed to the analytics with respect to dialectic. (shrink)

Business ethics’ theories have come under a lot of criticism lately. The problem has been the lack of a philosophical base or the inadequate implementation of it. We are trying to solve this problem by examining the roots of ethics and then applying it to the business environment. The root that has been undeservedly overlooked has been the concept of free will, the oldest philosophical problem on which every ethics theory lies. We have chosen two theories that we think would (...) be the best base for business ethics. We will shortly present the others. Since free will presents the core of business ethics, business ethicists must first agree on which theory to implement. Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ theory of free will best amplify the core of economic theory, because it gives reason a central and most important role in the theory. The concept of free will is mainly philosophical as is business ethics so the article follows this tradition, but we tried to give business examples where possible. We do not give a final conclusion because it should be reached by debate and mutual agreement between business ethicists. (shrink)

Nussbaum misconstrues the difference between Plato and Aristotle over what is real for a debate over a conception of truth. She seems to mistake Aristotle's arguments against Plato' version of realism as an argument against realism per se, though the texts do not permit such a reading. She claims Aristotle is convinced that realism involves a fatal “failure of reference,” yet she produces not a single text where Aristotle is even remotely concerned about such a failure of reference given the (...) commitments of realism. And nowhere is the crucial question of the relationship between Aristotle's antirealism and his method of appearances explicitly addressed or resolved.Nussbaum offers us a fashionable Aristotle. I have argued that, far from being attractive and obviously right on a deep and recent metaphysuical debate, Nussbaum's Aristotle is confused and inconsistent and thus that it is a good thing the texts do not support such a characterization. (shrink)