Este trabajo abordará cuestiones esenciales sobre el imaginario colectivo y sus relaciones con la realidad y la verdad. Primero, debemos abordar este tema dentro de un marco conceptual, seguido del correspondiente análisis fáctico de realidades conductuales demostrables. Adoptaremos no solo la metodología, sino sobre todo los principios y proposiciones de la filosofía analítica, que seguramente quedarán patentes a lo largo del estudio y podrán identificarse por las características descritas por Pérez. : Rabossi (1975) sostiene que la filosofía analítica puede identificarse (...) considerando ciertos parecidos familiares. Sugiere los siguientes rasgos familiares: una actitud positiva hacia el conocimiento científico; un enfoque cauteloso de la metafísica; una concepción de la filosofía como tarea conceptual, que toma como método el análisis conceptual; una estrecha relación entre lengua y Filosofía; una preocupación por buscar respuestas argumentativas a problemas filosóficos; la búsqueda de claridad conceptual. -/- Estos conceptos originales implican contenidos culturales, sociales, religiosos, científicos, filosóficos, morales y políticos propios de cada existencia colectiva. En este estudio no debatiremos ni demostraremos. Nuestro objetivo no es establecer sistemáticamente un método, criticar o aportar pruebas. Este trabajo se basa en la reflexión analítica. Especularemos lo más completa y profundamente posible y expresaremos los resultados de nuestros pensamientos. Sin perjuicio del carácter multidisciplinar del tema y de la apertura metodológica para aceptar aportaciones de cualquier campo científico, este trabajo pertenece a la psicología y la ontología o, en otras palabras, a la psicología social y ontológica. La metodología libre que orienta estas reflexiones abarca y considera todo lo que se acerca a la coherencia con la epistemología filosófica y psicológica. Esta metodología no busca evidencia, sino que busca la interrelación entre evidencia existente de cualquier naturaleza y magnitud, infiriendo significado consistente a partir de cosas reales. Muchos grandes pensadores en ningún momento han buscado demostraciones, teorizaciones o sistematizaciones. Estos pensadores pensaron, meditaron y pudieron acercarse a la verdad con la iluminación de su humildad. Ellos serán nuestra referencia y el ejemplo a seguir. De hecho, no encontraremos la verdad. Sin embargo, de una cosa podemos estar seguros: muchas veces nos acercaremos a la verdad y en todo momento nos alejaremos de la mentira. El objetivo principal de este estudio es observar cómo funcionan algunos de los atributos evolutivos esenciales de la humanidad. Al igual que la creatividad, la imaginación y la asociación pueden convertirse en una enfermedad peligrosa, al abrigo de las brumosas sombras de la inteligencia. -/- . (shrink)

"Ethical Explorations: Moral Dilemmas in a Universe of Possibilities" by Brendan Shea is an open access textbook that provides a comprehensive study of ethical philosophy. Shea makes it his task to chart the sprawling landscape of moral thought from ancient times to the present, employing a straightforward, easily accessible style. -/- In the book, each chapter addresses a distinct ethical theory. Shea discusses everything from Plato's allegorical Cave to contemporary issues in bioethics. The text features relatable narratives, clear explanations of (...) core concepts, thought-provoking questions, and handy glossaries to help readers grasp the subject matter. -/- Among the topics, you'll find the principles of utilitarianism through the adventures of a princess, an exploration of duty via a story about a golem, and a look at natural law theory through an engaging science-fiction tale. Contemporary themes also make an appearance, including discussions on Marxism, Nietzsche's radical ideas, Simone de Beauvoir's intersection of feminism and existentialism, and racial theories from W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King. -/- As an open access (CC-BY) textbook, "Ethical Explorations" is freely available to everyone, making the study of moral philosophy accessible to all. It's a tool that gives its readers the means to wrestle with ethical questions in an ever-changing world. (shrink)

В данной работе рассматриваются важнейшие вопросы о коллективном воображаемом и его отношениях с реальностью и истиной. Сначала мы рассмотрим эту тему в концептуальных рамках, а затем проведем соответствующий фактологический анализ наглядных поведенческих реалий. Мы будем опираться не только на методологию, но и, главным образом, на постулаты и положения аналитической философии, которые, безусловно, будут проявляться на протяжении всего исследования и могут быть идентифицированы по признакам, описанным Пересом : Рабосси (1975) отстаивает идею, что аналитическая философия может быть идентифицирована путем рассмотрения некоторых семейных (...) сходств. Он предлагает следующие семейные черты: позитивное отношение к научному знанию; осторожное отношение к метафизике; представление о философии как о концептуальной задаче, в которой в качестве метода используется концептуальный анализ; тесная связь между языком и философией; стремление к аргументированным ответам на философские проблемы; поиск концептуальной ясности. Эти базовые понятия включают в себя культурное, социальное, религиозное, научное, философское, моральное и политическое содержание, принадлежащее каждому и коллективному существованию. В данной статье мы не будем дискутировать и доказывать. Наша цель — не систематическая методология, не критика и не доказательство. Настоящая работа основана на аналитической рефлексии. Мы будем рассуждать как можно более полно и глубоко и излагать результаты своих размышлений. Несмотря на междисциплинарный характер темы и методологическую открытость к принятию вклада из любой области науки, данная работа относится к психологии и онтологии, или, другими словами, к социальной и онтологической психологии. Свободная методология, направляющая такие размышления, охватывает и рассматривает все, что приближается к согласованности с философской и психологической эпистемологией. Эта методология не гонится за доказательствами, а ищет взаимосвязь между существующими доказательствами любой природы и величины, выводя когерентный смысл реальных вещей. (shrink)

In this work, we will approach some essential questions about the collective imaginary and their relations with reality and truth. We should face this subject in a conceptual framework, followed by the corresponding factual analysis of demonstrable behavioral realities. We will adopt not only the methodology, but mostly the tenets and propositions of the analytic philosophy, which certainly will be apparent throughout the study, and may be identified by the features described by Perez : -/- Rabossi (1975) defends the idea (...) that analytic philosophy can be identified by considering certain family resemblances. He suggests the following family traits: a positive attitude toward scientific knowledge; a cautious attitude toward metaphysics; a conception of philosophy as a conceptual task, which takes conceptual analysis as a method; a close relationship between language and philosophy; a concern with seeking argumentative answers to philosophical problems; search for conceptual clarity Perez, Diana Ines, "Analytic Philosophy in Latin America”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ). These core concepts involve cultural, social, religious, scientific, philosophic, moral, and political contents, belonging to the individual and collective existence of each one of us. The present work grounds itself on analytical reflection. We will speculate the most comprehensive and profound way we can and express the results of our thoughts. Notwithstanding the multidisciplinary nature of the subject and the methodological openness for accepting contributions from any field of science, this work belongs to the aim of psychology and ontology or, in other terms, social and ontological psychology. The main scope of this paper is to observe how some essential evolutionary attributes of humankind, like creativity, imagination, and association, can become a hazardous sickness, sheltered in the misty shadows of the intelligence. (shrink)

Diese Arbeit wird wesentliche Fragen über das kollektive Imaginär und seine Beziehungen zur Realität und Wahrheit ansprechen. Zunächst sollten wir dieses Thema in einem konzeptionellen Rahmen ansprechen, gefolgt von der entsprechenden Tatsachenanalyse demonstrierbarer Verhaltensrealitäten. Wir werden nicht nur die Methodik, sondern vor allem die Prinzipien und Sätze der analytischen Philosophie annehmen. Die vorliegende Arbeit beruht analytischer Reflexion. Wir werden so umfassend und tief wie möglich spekulieren und die Ergebnisse unserer Gedanken ausdrücken. Trotz des multidisziplinären Charakters des Themas und der methodischen (...) Offenheit für die Annahme. Beiträge aus jedem Bereich der Wissenschaft, diese Arbeit gehört zu Psychologie und Ontologie oder, mit anderen Worten, soziale und ontologische Psychologie. Die freie Methodik, die solche Reflexionen leitet, umfasst und betrachtet alles, was sich der Kohärenz mit der philosophischen und psychologischen Epistemologie nähert. Diese Methodik verfolgt keine Beweise, sondern sucht nach der Wechselbeziehung zwischen bestehenden Beweisen jeglicher Art und Größe, die eine kohärente Bedeutung zu den realen Dingen ableiten. Der Hauptbereich dieses Titels besteht darin, zu beobachten, wie einige der wesentlichen evolutionären Attribute der Menschheit, wie Kreativität, Fantasie und Assoziation, zu einer gefährlichen Krankheit werden können, die in den Nebelschatten der Intelligenz versteckt ist. (shrink)

After describing the disorder of psychopathy, I examine the theories and the evidence concerning the psychopaths’ deficient moral capacities. I first examine whether or not psychopaths can pass tests of moral knowledge. Most of the evidence suggests that they can. If there is a lack of moral understanding, then it has to be due to an incapacity that affects not their declarative knowledge of moral norms, but their deeper understanding of them. I then examine two suggestions: it is their deficient (...) practical reason or their stunted emotions that are at fault. The evidence supports both explanations. I conclude with an overview of the debate concerning whether they are morally or legally responsible for their actions. (shrink)

Though the rise of social media has provided countless advantages and possibilities, both within and without the domain of sports, recent years have also seen some more detrimental aspects of these technologies come to light. In particular, the widespread social media culture surrounding fitness – ‘fitspiration’ – warrants attention for the way it encourages self-sexualization and -objectification, thereby epitomizing a wider issue with photo-based social media in general. Though the negative impact of fitspiration has been well documented, what is less (...) understood are the ways it potentially impacts and molds moral psychology, and how these same aspects may come to influence digital sports subcultures more broadly. In this theoretical paper, I rely on the insights of Friedrich Nietzsche to analyze the moral significance of a culture like fitspiration becoming normalized and influential in structuring and informing self-understanding, notions of value, and how to flourish in life. Using two doctrines central to Nietzsche’s philosophy—The Last Man and his conception of the ’higher self’ – I argue that fitspiration involves a form of hedonism that is potentially harmful to the pursuit and achievement of human flourishing. Through fitspiration, desire is elevated to a central moral principle, underlying the way users both consume and produce its content, catering simultaneously to their desires for external validation and instant gratification. It thereby creates conditions which foster a culture in adherence to the ethos of The Last Man. In doing so, I argue it impedes the cultivation of the virtues and higher values which define the higher individual, regarded by Nietzsche as essential for human flourishing. However, drawing on the ethical framework of the higher individual provides the philosophical and psychological resources with which resisting and overcoming the more harmful temptations of these trends may be possible. (shrink)

Learning from Arguments advances accessible versions of key philosophical arguments, in a form that students can emulate in their own writing, and with the primary aim of cultivating an understanding of the dynamics of philosophical argumentation. -/- The book contains ten core chapters, covering the problem of evil, Pascal’s wager, personal identity, the irrationality of fearing death, free will and determinism, Cartesian skepticism, the problem of induction, the problem of political authority, the violinist argument, the future-like-ours argument, the ethics of (...) eating meat, utilitarianism (both act and rule), and the trolley problem. Additionally, there is an introductory chapter explaining what arguments are and surveying some common argumentative strategies, an appendix on logic explaining the mechanics and varieties of valid arguments, and an appendix providing detailed advice for writing philosophy papers. -/- Each of the ten core chapters offers a sustained argument for some controversial thesis, specifically written for an audience of beginners. The aim is to introduce newcomers to the dynamics of philosophical argumentation, using some of the arguments standardly covered in an introductory philosophy course, but without the additional hurdles one encounters when reading the primary sources of the arguments: challenging writing, specialized jargon, and references to unfamiliar books, philosophers, or schools of thought. (shrink)

From the publisher: "This book is a lucid and accessible companion to Plato’s Republic, throwing light upon the text’s arguments and main themes, placing them in the wider context of the text’s structure. In its illumination of the philosophical ideas underpinning the work, it provides readers with an understanding and appreciation of the complexity and literary artistry of Plato’s Republic. McAleer not only unpacks the key overarching questions of the text – What is justice? And Is a just life happier (...) than an unjust life? – but also highlights some fascinating, overlooked passages which contribute to our understanding of Plato’s philosophical thought.". (shrink)

No presente trabalho, vamos abordar algumas das questões essenciais sobre o imaginário coletivo e suas relações com a realidade e a verdade. Devemos encarar esse assunto em uma estrutura conceptual, seguida pela análise factual correspondente às realidades comportamentais demonstráveis. Adotaremos não apenas a metodologia, mas principalmente os princípios e proposições da filosofia analítica, que com certeza serão evidentes ao longo do estudo e podem ser identificados pelos recursos descritos por Perez[1] : Rabossi (1975) defende a ideia de que a filosofia (...) analítica pode ser identificada considerando-se certas semelhanças familiares. Ele sugere os seguintes traços familiares: uma atitude positiva em relação ao conhecimento científico; uma atitude cautelosa em relação à metafísica; uma concepção da filosofia como uma tarefa conceptual, que toma a análise conteudo como um método; uma estreita relação entre linguagem e filosofia; uma preocupação em buscar respostas argumentativas para problemas filosóficos, e procura de clareza conceptual. Esses conceitos centrais envolvem conteúdos culturais, sociais, religiosos, científicos, filosóficos, morais e políticos, pertencentes à existência individual e coletiva de cada um de nós. Neste artigo, não discutiremos nem demonstraremos. Nosso objetivo não é o de sistematicamente criticar ou evidenciar qualquer coisa, de qualquer maneira. O presente trabalho se baseia na reflexão analítica. Apenas especularemos da maneira mais abrangente e profunda que pudermos e expressaremos os resultados de nossos pensamentos. Não obstante a natureza multidisciplinar do assunto e a abertura metodológica para aceitar contribuições de qualquer campo da ciência, este trabalho pertence ao objetivo da psicologia e ontologia ou, em outros termos, da psicologia social e ontológica. A metodologia livre que norteia tais reflexões abrange e leva em consideração tudo o que se aproxima da coerência com a epistemologia filosófica e psicológica. Essa metodologia não busca alcançar evidências, mas apenas procura a inter-relação entre evidências já existentes, de qualquer natureza e magnitude, inferindo um significado coerente para as coisas reais. Muitos dos grandes pensadores, a qualquer momento, nunca procuraram demonstrações, teorizações ou sistematizações. Esses pensadores apenas pensavam, meditavam e com a iluminação de sua humildade podiam se aproximar da verdade. Eles serão nossa referência e o exemplo a ser seguido. Com certeza, não encontraremos a verdade, mas podemos ter certeza de alguma coisa: em muitos momentos, chegaremos perto da verdade e, em todos os momentos, estaremos nos afastando da inverdade e da mentira. O escopo principal deste estudo é observar como alguns dos atributos evolutivos essenciais da humanidade, como criatividade, imaginação e associação, podem se tornar uma doença perigosa, abrigada nas sombras enevoadas da inteligência. (shrink)

In this paper, we address the question of the ways in which pleasure, as associated specifically with eating food, can help us understand the philosophical complexities of pleasure and how it can be neither purely physical nor purely intellectual. Philosophers have argued for centuries that intellectual pleasure is superior to physical pleasure, but here we make it clear that they are inextricably linked and interdependent on one another. We appeal to Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, but rely heavily on the ideals (...) of Epicurus for an understanding of the relationship between moderation and pleasure. In the end, we argue for a balanced approach to eating that can serve as a model for both physical, sexual, and intellectual pleasures. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Epicurean View of Death Death and Deprivation It's a Good Life… Conclusion Notes.

In this paper, I explore the connection between certain metaphysical views of time and emotional attitudes concerning one’s own death and mortality. I argue that one metaphysical view of time, B-theory, offers consolation to mortals in the face of death relative to commonsense and another metaphysical view of time, A-theory. Consolation comes from three places. First, B-theory implies that time does not really pass, and as a result one has less reason to worry about one’s time growing short. Second, B-theory (...) entails that there is a real sense in which one’s death does not result in one’s annihilation, and this fact can temper feelings of existential distress. Third, B-theory has the consequence that the benefits one has lost have concrete existence, and this fact can mitigate the emotional significance of the losses of death. (shrink)

In this article I defend innocuousism– a weak form of Epicureanism about the putative badness of death. I argue that if we assume both mental statism about wellbeing and that death is an experiential blank, it follows that death is not bad for the one who dies. I defend innocuousism against the deprivation account of the badness of death. I argue that something is extrinsically bad if and only if it leads to states that are intrinsically bad. On my view, (...) sometimes dying may be less good than living, but it is never bad to die. (shrink)

More than two decades after his seminal paper ‘Subjective Well-Being’, Ed Diener wrote that he substituted happiness with well-being to obtain scientific credibility. Are the arguments echoed in positive psychology rigorous enough to justify this substitution? This article focuses on the historical examination of the word happiness, covering the lexical universes of ancient Greek, Latin, and English, seeking to identify the connections between them. We found that arguments for such substitution are sustained by a fragile appreciation of the semantic depth (...) of happiness. Although it favors quantification, the current understanding of well-being obliterates the plurality of the debate about happiness and the recognition of other ideals of life. Thus, we conclude that well-being and happiness are semantically close, but conceptually, metaphysically, and empirically distinct, demanding, as objects, particular investigations. (shrink)

In this paper I describe and argue against two positions. The first, espoused by Epicurus and other philosophers, contends that in permanent death, since there is no longer a subject, my own death cannot be a loss for me. I argue that this thesis makes an illicitassumption and itself embodies a conceptual confusion. Therefore, my death can after all have the logical status of a loss for me. The Christian Church, however, has adopted what I call the “official” position; namely, (...) that while my death could be a loss for me, if I am a believer, it must instead be considered a gain. Against this claim, I urge the adoption of a contrary “unofficial” position which argues that even as a believer my death may be a loss for me. I contend that the “official” position embodies internal incoherence and promotes a corrupt version of Christianity. The “unofficial” position, however, is compatible with Christian teaching on self-mortification and more accurately represents New Testament attitudes towards death. Thereby I conclude that regarding my death as loss to myself is neither conceptually absurd nor a failure of faith. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the growing block theory of time has rather surprising, and hitherto unexplored, explanatory benefits when it comes to certain enduring philosophical puzzles concerning death. In particular, I claim the growing block theorist has readily available and convincing answers to the following questions: Why is it an evil to be dead but not an evil to be not yet born? How can death be an evil for the dead if they no longer exist to suffer (...) it? When is death an evil for the one who dies? The ability to give such answers is a significant, but by no means decisive, advantage for the growing block view of time. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of whether or not Epicurus was a psychological hedonist. Did he, that is, hold that all human action, as a matter of fact, has pleasure as its goal? Or was he just an ethical hedonist, asserting merely that pleasure ought to be the goal of human action? I discuss a recent forceful attempt by John Cooper to answer the latter question in the affirmative, and argue that he fails to make his case. There is considerable (...) evidence in favour of a psychological reading of Epicurean hedonism, evidence that includes some of the very texts that Cooper cites in support of the ethical reading. (shrink)

Both moral and legal theory feature prominent talk about rights. Yet there is very little agreement about what rights are, about why we use rights in our moral or legal theories, or about what to do when there is a conflict between rights. This article surveys many of the popular theory for analysing rights and explaining their scope.

In recent years, philosophers have proposed a variety of accounts of the nature of harm. In this paper, I consider several of these accounts and argue that they are unsuccessful. I then make a modest case for a different view.

Desire satisfaction theories of well-being and deprivationism about the badness of death face similar problems: desire satisfaction theories have trouble locating the time when the satisfaction of a future or past-directed desire benefits a person; deprivationism has trouble locating a time when death is bad for a person. I argue that desire satisfaction theorists and deprivation theorists can address their respective timing problems by accepting fusionism, the view that some events benefit or harm individuals only at fusions of moments in (...) time. Fusionism improves on existing solutions to the timing problem for deprivationism because it locates death’s badness at the same time as both the victim of death and death itself, and it accounts for all of the ways that death is bad for a person. Fusionism improves on existing solutions to the problem of temporally locating the benefit of future and past-directed desires because it respects several attractive principles, including the view that the intrinsic value of a time for someone is determined solely by states of affairs that obtain at that time and the view that intrinsically beneficial events benefit a person when they occur. (shrink)

Death is a bad thing by virtue of its ability to frustrate the subjectively valuable projects that shape our identities and render our lives meaningful. While the presumption that immortality would necessarily result in boredom worse than death proves unwarranted, if the constraint of mortality is a necessary element for virtues, relationships, and motivation to pursue our life-projects, then death might nevertheless be a necessary evil. Mortal or immortal, it’s clear that the value of one’s life depends on its subjectively (...) determined quality, rather than its quantity. Thus, it is imperative to live forever in the present, with flourishing always in mind. (shrink)

The Epicurean view is that there is nothing bad about death, and we are wrong to loathe it. This paper distinguishes several different such views, and shows that while some of them really would undermine our loathing of death, others would not. It then argues that any version that did so could be at best vacuously true: If there is nothing bad about death, that can only be because there is nothing bad about anything.

In the clinical practice of palliative medicine, recommended communication models fail to approximate the truth of suffering associated with an impending death. I provide evidence from patients' stories and empiric research alike to support this observation. Rather than attributing this deficiency to inadequate training or communication skills, I examine the epistemological premises of the biomedical language governing the patient-physician communication. I demonstrate that the contemporary biomedicine faces a fundamental aporetic occlusion in attempting to examine death. This review asserts that the (...) occlusion defines, rather than simply complicating, palliative care. Given the defining place of aporia in the care for the dying, I suggest that this finding shape the clinicians' responses to the needs of patients in clinical care and in designing palliative research. Lastly, I briefly signal that a genuinely apophatic voice construing the occlusion as a mystery rather than an aporia may be superior to the present communication and empathy models. (shrink)

A common argument against lockdowns is that they restrict freedom. On this view, lockdowns might be effective in protecting public health, but their impact on freedom is purely negative. This article challenges that view. It argues that while lockdowns restrict freedom, so too do viruses. Since viruses restrict freedom and lockdowns protect us from viruses, lockdowns can protect us from the harmful effects that viruses have on freedom. The problem we face is not necessarily freedom versus public health. Sometimes it (...) is freedom itself—or its value or distribution—that provides reason for lockdowns. (shrink)

Although Kant’s final work in moral philosophy, Die Metaphysik der Sitten, currently attracts much scholarly attention, there is still a lot to explore. This article is an attempt to get to grips with a particular, often neglected passage of the Rechtslehre, namely §35. Here Kant defends the view that not only can a person’s good reputation can be tarnished after his death, but also that this constitutes a violation of this dead person’s property. Here I will not be able to (...) fully clarify what Kant means when he holds that persons can be harmed after their death, but I will put Kant’s view in a few perspectives. (shrink)

Giorgio Agamben's The Kingdom and the Glory opens by intervening in a debate between the jurist Carl Schmitt and the theologian Erik Peterson. Peterson's “Monotheism as a Political Problem” undermined Schmitt's thesis that the modern concept of sovereignty derives from Christian theology by arguing that divine monarchy is a Judaic and Greek idea that was liquidated by the doctrine of the Trinity. Agamben, by contrast, argues that the Trinity preserves and transforms the model of divine monarchy by casting God as (...) singular in his being and multiple in his management of the world. I argue that this critique of Peterson in fact builds upon the “Monotheism” essay, which shows how political theologians inherited and rearticulated conceptual problems derived from Aristotle's Metaphysics, and is driven by Agamben's concern with the impact of Aristotle's thought on ontology and politics. (shrink)

In this article, we reflect on our experiences teaching a PWOL course called Philosophy for Living. The course uses modules focused on different historical philosophical ways of life (Epicureanism, Stoicism, Confucianism, Existentialism, etc.) to engage students in exploring how philosophy can be a way of life and how its methods, virtues, and ideas can improve their own lives. We describe and compare our experiences with two central aspects of our approach: engagement with diversity and the use of immersive experiences and (...) assignments. In particular, we discuss how we recognize and center various forms of diversity in philosophy—cultural and gender diversity, but also diversity in how and in what forms philosophy can be done and what “philosophy as a way of life” can be. We also examine how the experimental and experiential aspects of immersive assignments promote deeper understanding and create possibilities for personal transformation. (shrink)

Tom Regan's four explanations of animal rights are examined and rejected as inadequate. A superior interest based account of animal rights is proposed. This derives an animal's right to freedom from harm from interests that are implicit in the conscious life of the animal. According to Tom Regan, there are four possible accounts for dealing with the issue of how animals should be treated: (1) the ?Kantian account?; (2) the ?cruelty account?; (3) the ?utilitarian account?; and (4) the ?animal rights (...) account? (Regan, 2001, pp. 41?55). In this paper I propose to briefly survey these four accounts and argue for a fifth view, the ?interests account?, which I believe is the most reasonable of the five accounts. (shrink)

If a person’s death is bad for him for the reason that he would have otherwise been intrinsically better off, as the Deprivation Approach says, does it not follow that his prenatal nonexistence is bad for him as well? Recently, it has been suggested that the “A-theory” of time can be used to support a negative answer to this question. In this paper, I raise some problems for this approach.

SUMMARYThis article argues that the term ‘Epicurean’ had multiple meanings in the moral and political thought of the eighteenth century. Concentrating on the reception of Epicureanism in France, it shows that some critics focused on Epicurus’ hedonistic moral psychology and labelled Epicurean those thinkers who denied natural sociability; for others, who instead focused on Epicurus’ materialist natural philosophy, to label a thinker an Epicurean was to label them an atheist. This polyvalence is presented as a salutary caution against essentialising claims (...) about the content of eighteenth-century Epicureanism per se. Despite this sceptical stance, however, the article goes on to argue that it is nevertheless fruitful to investigate the engagement with Epicureanism by particular thinkers or in particular texts. Indeed, a comparative reading of Denis Diderot's Encyclopédie entry on ‘Epicuréisme’ and his source material in Johan Jakob Bruker and Pierre Bayle demonstrates that Diderot used his discussion of Epicureanism to intervene directly in contemporary theological controversies over the immortal soul and a providential god. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to study the relationship between Epicureanism and pandemic priority-setting and to explore whether Epicurus's philosophy is compliant with the later developed utilitarianism. We find this aim interesting because Epicurus had a different way of valuing death than our modern society does: Epicureanism holds that death—understood as the incident of death—cannot be bad (or good) for those who die (self-regarding effects). However, this account is still consistent with the view that a particular death can be (...) bad for everyone else but those who die, such as family, friends, and society (other-regarding effects). During the pandemic, the focus has been on the number of deaths more than on the suffering and reduced well-being of those infected and the rest of society. However, since the pandemic requires prioritization, it is, on a utilitarian account, important to consider priorities that do the most good overall. In this article, we approach the harm of death from an Epicurean point of view, seeking to flesh out potential implications for pandemic priority-setting, and healthcare in general, using a case study of COVID-19 priority-setting. We also explore whether this would conflict with utilitarianism. We conclude that an Epicurean pandemic priority-setting approach would be different but, surprisingly, not radically different from many of the actual priority-setting decisions we saw under the COVID-19 pandemic. (shrink)

According to what I will refer to as judgmentalist approaches to the fear of death, the fear of death conforms to the structure implied by judgmentalist theories of emotion. JFD holds that fears of death are constituted in part by evaluative judgments or beliefs about one’s own death. Although many philosophers endorse JFD, there is good reason to believe that it may be problematic. For, there is a troubling objection to judgmentalist theories of emotion; if judgmentalism is false, then so (...) too is JFD. In brief, the worry with judgmentalist theories is this: it is sometimes the case that one has an emotion, but holds a belief that is in tension with the emotion. For example, I sometimes fear flying despite the fact that I believe flying is not dangerous. Emotions of this sort are often referred to as recalcitrant emotions, and they are widely thought to pose a serious challenge to judgmentalist theories. In this paper, I consider an objection to JFD based on the existence of recalcitrant bouts of the fear of death. I include in this discussion an Epicurean-inspired solution to the problem of emotional recalcitrance. Although I argue this solution may be ultimately unsuccessful, I believe it is still worth considering. For, in most discussions of the problem of emotional recalcitrance, philosophers abandon judgmentalism in favour of some other theory of emotion. The Epicurean-inspired solution I discuss in this paper, however, may allow one to retain one’s commitment to judgmentalism. (shrink)

Philosophers have said less than is needed about the nature of premature death, and about the badness or otherwise of that death for the one who dies. In this paper, premature death’s nature is clarified in Epicurean terms. And an accompanying argument denies that we need to think of such a death as bad in itself for the one who dies. Premature death’s nature is conceived of as a death that arrives before ataraxia does. (Ataraxia’s nature is also clarified. It (...) is a pervasive inner peace that is a kind of purity and completeness in how one is living.) Whatever harm we might attribute to a premature death is better attributed to a life’s being lived at that time without ataraxia. The paper ends by explaining how its Epicurean account, more so than comparativist or narrativist accounts, could allow a person to know that her death will not be premature. (shrink)

Elselijn Kingma maintains that Christopher Boorse and other naturalists in the philosophy of medicine cannot deliver the value-free account of disease that they promise. Even if disease is understood as dysfunction and that notion can be applied in a value-free manner, values still manifest themselves in the justification for picking one particular operationalization of dysfunction over a number of competing alternatives. Disease determinations depend upon comparisons within a reference class vis-à-vis reaching organism goals. Boorse considers reference classes for a species (...) to consist in the properties of age and sex and organism goals to comprise survival and reproduction. Kingma suggests that naturalists are influenced by value judgments and may rely upon implicit assumptions about disease in their choice of reference classes and goals to determine which conditions are diseased. I argue that she is wrong to claim that these choices cannot be defended without arguing in a circular manner or making certain arbitrary or value-driven judgments. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Gray, Knickman, and Wegner present three experiments which they take to show that people judge patients in a persistent vegetative state to have less mental capacity than the dead. They explain this result by claiming that people have implicit dualist or afterlife beliefs. This essay critically evaluates their experimental findings and their proposed explanation. We argue first that the experiments do not support the conclusion that people intuitively think PVS patients have less mentality than the dead. (...) And second, we provide an alternative explanation of our ascriptions of mentality to the dead and PVS patients, one which turns on Epicurean considerations about the nature of death. (shrink)

Most religious traditions hold that what makes one a person is the possession of a soul and that this gives one moral status. This status in turn gives persons interests and rights that delimit the set of actions that are permitted to be done to them. In this paper, I identify the soul with the capacity for consciousness and mental life and examine the ethical aspects of medical decision-making at the beginning and end of life in cases of patients who (...) either never have had or have lost this capacity. I argue that, although these patients may lack moral status, they nonetheless have moral value as human organisms and forms of Godgiven biological life. In particular, I explore what this value entails about the permissibility of withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment and of harvesting viable organs from patients with no higher-brain function. (shrink)

Much theorizing about altruism has been undertaken within a naturalistic and deterministic sociobiological framework that has sought to explain altruistic action in terms of underlying genetic selfishness. Recently, however, social constructionist thinkers have developed an alternative to such theorizing which suggests that human action arises out of fundamentally open-ended and malleable social relationships. This paper intends to show, however, that a reductive egoism is nonetheless still at work in such accounts, typically taking the form of an underlying concern for matters (...) of personal status and social recognition. As a response, this paper will briefly outline the work of the French phenomenologists Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Emmanuel Levinas as an example of non-reductive and fundamentally Other-oriented alternatives to both sociobiological and social constructionist accounts of altruistic action. (shrink)

When considering the social valuation of a life-year, there is a conflict between two basic intuitions: on the one hand, the intuition of universality, according to which the value of an additional life-year should be universal, and, as such, should be invariant to the context considered; on the other hand, the intuition of complementarity, according to which the value of a life-year should depend on what this extra-life-year allows for, and, hence, on the quality of that life-year, because the quantity (...) of life and the quality of life are complement to each other. This paper proposes three distinct accounts of the intuition of universality, and shows that those accounts either conflict with a basic monotonicity property, or lead to indifference with respect to how life-years are distributed within the population. Those results support the abandon of the intuition of universality. But abandoning the intuition of universality does not prevent a social evaluator from giving priority, when allocating life-years, to individuals with the lowest quality of life. (shrink)

The Termination Thesis (or “TT”) is the view that people go out of existence when they die. Lots of philosophers seem to believe it. Epicurus, for example, apparently makes use of TT in his efforts to show that it is irrational to fear death. He says, “as long as we exist, death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist.”1 Lucretius says pretty much the same thing, but in many more words and more poetically: “Death (...) therefore to us is nothing, concerns us not a jot, since the nature of the mind is proved to be mortal; . . . when we shall be no more, when there shall have been a separation of body and soul, out of both of which we are each formed into a single being, to us, you may be sure, who then shall be no more, nothing whatever can happen to excite sensation.”. (shrink)

The students and colleagues of Roderick Chisholm admired and respected Chisholm. Many were filled not only with admiration, but with affection and gratitude for Chisholm throughout the time we knew him. Even now that he is dead, we continue to wish him well. Under the circumstances, many of us probably think that that wish amounts to no more than this: we hope that things went well for him when he lived; we hope that he had a good life.

The article examines education from the perspective of its goals and functions. The development of thinking skills is considered as both the goal and function of education, and the process of thinking as a means of education. Education is broadly understood as the creation of an image, and narrowly as the complex of social institutions that carry out educational activity. As a mechanism of socialization, education is one of the most important historically formed tools for the training and development of (...) thinking ability, which is the main instrument of the evolutionary strategy ofhomo sapiens.The article discusses the ontological status of thought as an attributive property ofhomo sapiensthat defines human being. Thinking is a psychic reality rooted in biological processes, the fundamental basis of all cognitive and human activity-based processes. The author conducts a philosophical analysis of the concepts of thinking, good thinking, qualitative thought, and education. Philosophizing is considered as a special type of thinking, and the article researches its instrumental function, the potential ability to produce sanity, prudence, an analytical approach to any situation, and the ability to make independent decisions. Common to all philosophizing subjects will be that they will act as “demiurges” of their world, which they will be able to fill with their own meanings and values. Philosophical thinking is free thinking, which has a playful character, and therefore it can be defined as a game of meanings. The article describes existing approaches to the development of the philosophical education of children. The author draws attention to the advantage of the Russian system of higher education in connection with the compulsory teaching of philosophy, and argues to develop philosophical education for schoolchildren. The article concludes that the philosophical component of education at all levels, from elementary school to university, is an effective way to form high-quality thinking among students. (shrink)

On some popular accounts of promissory obligation, a promise creates an obligation to the person to whom the promise is made . On such accounts, the wrong involved in breaking a promise is a wrong committed against a promisee. I will call such accounts ‘directed obligation’ accounts of promissory obligation. While I concede that directed obligation accounts make good sense of many of our promissory obligations, I aim to show that directed obligation accounts, at least in their current forms, cannot (...) accommodate an obligation to keep deathbed promises. While the term 'deathbed promise' refers to any promise made to a person who is dying, I focus specifically on deathbed promises which will not, or even cannot, be fulfilled until after the promisee's death. In what follows, I examine two prominent types of directed obligation account: rights-based accounts, which argue that a promissory obligation is a directed obligation because a promise gives the promisee certain rights, and harm accounts, which argue that a promissory obligation is a directed obligation because a promise puts the promisee in a special position to be harmed. I argue that neither version can accommodate an obligation to keep deathbed promises. (shrink)

This paper considers three accounts of the relationship between personal immortality and materialism. In particular, the pagan mortalism of the Epicureans is compared with the Christian mortalism of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. It is argued 1) that there are significant similarities between these views, 2) that Locke and Hobbes were, to some extent, influenced by the Epicureans, and 3) that the relation between mortality and materialism is not as straightforward as is commonly supposed.