The case of embryo research provides insight into the challenges for historians and philosophers of science who want to engage social issues, and even more challenges in engaging society. Yet there are opportunities in doing so. History and philosophy of science research demonstrates that the public impression of embryos does not fit with our scientific understanding. In cases where there are competing understandings of the phenomena and public impacts, we have to negotiate social responses. Historians and philosophers of science can (...) both inform and learn from engaging in the process, by helping to recognize underlying assumptions and by demonstrating changing ideas over time and what factors have caused the changes. (shrink)

The author discusses why the philosophy of the subject has been important\nto postmodernists. The author commences with a discussion on the\nintellectual background of postmodernism and its relations with other\nkinds of philosophy and with history. This paper concludes with a\ndiscussion about Michel Foucault's views on education and training\nand what impact this had on development of policy in New Zealand.

Two conservative theorists, F. A. Hayek and Michael Oakeshott, have advanced theories of law with important and plausible central theses focusing on the rule of law. The author argues, however, that in each case the theorist ‐ or at least some of his followers on the contemporary British and American political scene ‐ have wrongly inferred strong conclusions from these theories which are inimical to the welfare state. In conclusion, the author points to possible ways of reconciling rule of law (...) to social justice. (shrink)

: This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible.

Abstract: In this article I consider Bernard Williams's argument against the possibility of external reasons for action and his claim that the only reasons for action are therefore internal. Williams's argument appeals to David Hume's claim that reason is the slave of the passions, and to the idea that reasons are capable of motivating the agent who has them. I consider two responses to Williams's argument, by John McDowell and by Stephen Finlay. McDowell claims that even if Hume is right, (...) there might nevertheless be external reasons. Finlay also claims that external reasons exist but, rejecting the connection between reasons and motivation, claims that they don't matter—that is, aren't motivationally significant for the agent whose reasons they are. Although I reject aspects of McDowell's and Finlay's arguments, I argue that external reasons do exist and in particular that any agent has an external reason to satisfy the preconditions of his or her agency. (shrink)

(2013). Spinoza and the Cosmological Argument According to Letter 12. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 57-77. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2012.696052.

This paper examines Hume’s comments on and claims about ancient philosophy. A clear and consistent picture emerges from doing so. While Hume is a lover of ancient literature, he holds ancient philosophy in very low regard, as passage after passage discloses, with one qualification and one important exception. Hume appropriates the mantle of ‘Academic’ sceptic for himself; but in fact his Academic (or ‘mitigated’) scepticism has only minimal affinity with the ancient school of this name, having more in common with (...) early modern sceptical positions. The exception is found in the ‘painterly’ depictions of character and other features of moral life, where Hume holds many of the ancients in very high regard, seeing them as superior to the moderns. The bases of these respective views of Hume’s are explored, with an interpretation which construes Hume’s ‘anatomist’/’painter’ contrast as meant non-ironically. On the anatomist or theoretical side, Hume nonetheless – rightly or wrongly, and contrary to the views of a number of his prominent readers – sees a radical, dramatic break between early modern ‘scientific’ philosophy, and anything which preceded it. (shrink)

The paper advances a Humean metaethical analysis of "intrinsic value" - a notion fundamental in moral philosophy in general and particularly so in environmental ethics. The analysis reduces an object's moral properties (e.g., its value) to the empirical relations between the object's natural properties and people's psychological dispositions to respond to them. Moral properties turn out to be both objective and subjective, but in ways compatible with, and complementary to, each other. Next, the paper investigates whether the Humean analysis can (...) support non-anthropocentric environmental ethical theories, which attribute intrinsic value to nonhuman natural entities. It argues that one of the most useful resources from Hume for non-anthropocentrism is his account of justice as an artificial virtue, which is a plausible model for the internalization of various environmentally friendly conventions and the creation of environmental values. Finally, the paper concludes that any Humean account of intrinsic value is empiricist all the way down. Moral questions about what things are intrinsically valuable, and to what extent they are so, are ultimately empirical questions about complex psychological capacities and dispositions of human beings, which cannot be single-handedly answered by philosophers a priori; and that ethics is more appropriately seen as an interdisciplinary investigation, requiring collaboration among the various psychological and social sciences, human biological and neurological sciences, and history and philosophy. (shrink)

Curiosity and imagination have been neglected in epistemology. This paper argues that the role of curiosity and imagination is central to the way we think, regardless of whether it is thinking about problems of ethics or problems of science. In our ever more materialistic society, curiosity and reason are either discouraged or narrowly channeled. I shall argue that the role of curiosity and imagination for both science and ethics is so important that nurturing them can be seen as an ethical (...) obligation and suppressing them as ethically problematic. (shrink)

In his dialogue with Zai Wo about the three-year mourning, Confucius establishes a principle of 'justification by feeling at ease,' and insists that one should transcend natural desires by moral emotions. More significantly, he further regards kinship love as the ultimate root and supreme principle of human life. Thus, this dialogue contains almost all the basic elements of the Confucian spirit of consanguineous affection.

Socrates regards rational knowledge as the decisive factor of human life and even ascribes all virtues and moral actions to it, thereby stressing the ‘rationales’ of ethics. In contrast, Confucius regards kinship love as the decisive factor of human life and even grounds all virtues and moral actions on it, thereby stressing the ‘emotionales’ of ethics. Therefore, we should not lump them together by conceiving Confucius’ ethics also as based on ‘moral reason’.

A central question in many debates on paternalism is whether a decision analyst can ever go against the stated preference of a client, even if merely intending to improve the decisions for the client. Using four gedanken-experiments, this paper shows that this central question, so cleverly and aptly avoided by libertarian paternalism (nudge), cannot always be avoided. The four thought experiments, while purely hypothetical, serve to raise and specify the critical arguments in a maximally clear and pure manner. The first (...) purpose of the paper is, accordingly, to provide a litmus test on the readers’ stance on paternalism. We thus also survey and organize the various stances in the literature. The secondary purpose of this paper is to argue that paternalism cannot always be avoided and consumer sovereignty cannot always be respected. However, this argument will remain controversial. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that the most cogent demands of subjectivity, at least with respect to questions concerning the contents of our thoughts, can be accommodated within an objectivist framework. I begin with two theses: (1) Subjectivity: I can know (the contents of) my own thoughts without appeal to any knowledge of features external to my mind; (2) Environmentalism: (The contents of) my thoughts are determined by features external to my mind, at least in this sense: without (...) causal and/or social interaction between my internal states and various external features, these internal states would not have the particular contents they have and therefore would not be the mental states they are. Section I proceeds by elucidating various lines of environmentalism, an overtly objectivist thesis. Section II considers and refutes one purported environmentalist challenge to subjectivity, namely, that, according to it, thoughts are not in the head. Section III discusses a central subjectivist thesis, namely, thoughts do not admit of an appearance/reality distinction. Tyler Burge and Hilary Putnam, two environmentalists, seem to endorse such a distinction. It is argued that the two most reasonable routes of escape open to them require a retreat from environmentalism. This leaves us with an apparent dilemma: reject either subjectivity or environmentalism Section IV defends environmentalism. Section V considers and criticizes a maneuver Donald Davidson makes to preserve first?person authority over thought?contents. Section VI concludes with a brief defense of environmentalism which rests largely on rejecting a deeply entrenched epistemic model about how we access our own thoughts. It is argued that it is this bad epistemic model and not subjectivity per se, which has created whatever tension there appears to be between subjectivity and environmentalism. (shrink)

This paper defends what the philosopher Merleau Ponty coins 'the imaginary texture of the real'. It is suggested that the imagination is at work in the everyday world which we perceive, the world as it is for us. In defending this view a concept of the imagination is invoked which has both similarities with and differences from, our everyday notion. The everyday notion contrasts the imaginary and the real. The imaginary is tied to the fictional or the illusory. Here it (...) will be suggested, following both Kant and Strawson, that there is a more fundamental working of the imagination, present in both perception and the constructions of fictions. What Kant and Strawson failed to make clear, however, was that the workings of the imagination within the perceived world, gives that world, an affective logic. The domain of affect is that of emotions, feelings and desire, and to claim such an affective logic in the world we experience, is to point out that it has salience and significance for us. Such salience suggests and demands the desiring and sometimes fearful responses we make to it; the shape of the perceived world echoed in the shapes our bodies take within it. (shrink)

Peirce wrote that Hume’s argument against miracles (which is generally liked by twentieth century philosophers for its antireligious conclusion) "completely misunderstood the true nature of" ’abduction’. This paper argues that if Hume’s argumentative strategy were seriously used in all situations (not just those in which we seek to "banish superstition"), it would deliver a choking epistemological conservatism. It suggests that some morals for contemporary naturalistic philosophy may be drawn from Peirce’s argument against Hume.

No Abstract In his graduate-seminar lectures on Kant—published as Kant and Pre-Kantian Themes (Sellars, 2002)—Wilfrid Sellars argues that because Hume cannot distinguish between a vivacious idea and an idea of something vivacious he cannot account for the human ability to represent temporally complex states of affairs. The first section of this paper aims to show that this argument is not properly aimed at the historical Hume who can, on a proper reading, distinguish these kinds of representations. This is not, however, (...) Sellars’ only argument for this conclusion. The next section of this paper continues with a discussion of an argument that Sellars presents on Kant’s behalf in Science and Metaphysics, and its key Kantian premise that, contra Hume, only conceptual representations can represent any complex states of affairs as such. The conclusion of this discussion is that Sellars does indeed present compelling reasons for rejecting a Humean account, reasons centered on the ambiguity of the associative structure of mental representation (which Sellars subsequently replaces with inferential structure). The paper concludes with an examination of the sense in which non-conceptual representations—such as those that Hume considers—represent and the role that these play in conceptual representation for both Sellars and Kant. (shrink)

But under the requirement of philosophic consistency, and the impact of the perfectly valid reflection that experience is always my experience, and never part of some object independent of me, the world shrinks to the extension of my experience only, and I am left with bundles of my sensations. What are the natural consequences of such an epistemological sophistication?One plausible and natural reaction is what one might call the ‘Indian’ one. It runs roughly as follows: my experience of the world (...) is, alas, only my experience. It is not ‘the real’. Moreover, the world disclosed in my experience is one of misery, precariousness, insecurity, which ends in old age and death and within which no secure, reliable, undeceptive goods can be found. The flux and precariousness which make it so unhappy a place, also make it most ill-suited to be an object of knowledge. — E. Gellner (1974: 114). (shrink)

Peter Winch, in his political philosophy, wanted to rethink the concepts of political authority, legitimacy and political culture, with a starting point in Wittgensteinian ideas. This essay brings together Winch's thoughts on political authority. Developing insights from Wittgenstein's work on certainty, Winch emphasised the unstated background behind any normative stand concerning authority. Ideas of legitimacy and civil society are formed within historically specific political cultures. In the 1990s, Winch was increasingly inclined to emphasise disagreement, which was related to his developing (...) views on understanding, logic and reasoning. This development is traced, in part, on the basis of unpublished lecture notes. (shrink)

A conscious being is characterized by its ability to cope with the environment--to perceive it, sometimes change it, and perhaps reflect on it. Surprisingly, most studies of the mind's place in nature show little interest in such interaction. It is often implicitly assumed that the main questions about consciousness just concern the status of various entities, levels, etc., within the individual. The intertwined notions of " experience" and " consciousness" are considered. The predominant use of these notions in cognitive science (...) can be traced back to Cartesianism. What is important is the survival of the central methodological commitments despite seemingly profound changes of metaphysical outlook. The author argues that cognitive scientists typically assimilate perception to sensation, thereby ignoring ways in which descriptions of perception and descriptions of the environment are logically intertwined; that this involves methodological solipsism and an unacknowledged sceptical position that was originally part of Descartes' Dream argument; and that it is impossible to identify the object supposedly to be studied by a science of the phenomenal consciousness. A somewhat parallel argument is identified in Kant's critique of rationalist psychology. (shrink)

In the post‐Kohlbergian era of moral education, a ‘moral gap’ has been identified between moral cognition and moral action. Contemporary moral psychologists lock horns over how this gap might be bridged. The two main contenders for such bridge‐building are moral emotions and moral selves. I explore these two options from an Aristotelian perspective. The moral‐self solution relies upon an anti‐realist conception of the self as ‘identity’, and I dissect its limitations. In its stead, I propose a Humean conception of the (...) moral self which preserves Aristotelian insights into the difference between self and identity, yet remains closer to modern sensitivities. According to such a conception, the moral‐self versus moral‐emotions dichotomy turns out to be illusory. Finally, I show some of the practical implications of this conception for moral education. (shrink)

Emotion education is enjoying new-found popularity. This paper explores the ‘cosy consensus’ that seems to have developed in education circles, according to which approaches to emotion education are immune from metaethical considerations such as contrasting rationalist and sentimentalist views about the moral ontology of emotions. I spell out five common assumptions of recent approaches to emotion education and explore their potential compatibility with four paradigmatic moral ontologies. I argue that three of these ontologies fail to harmonise with the common assumptions. (...) Either those three must therefore be rejected or, if we want to retain one or more of them, we need to revise our assumptions about the practice of emotion education in ways that are both radical and, I argue, ultimately unacceptable. (shrink)

Computer simulations are widely used in current scientific practice, as a tool to obtain information about various phenomena. Scientists accordingly rely on the outputs of computer simulations to make statements about the empirical world. In that sense, simulations seem to enable scientists to acquire empirical knowledge. The aim of this paper is to assess whether computer simulations actually allow for the production of empirical knowledge, and how. It provides an epistemological analysis of present-day empirical science, to which the traditional epistemological (...) categories cannot apply in any simple way. Our strategy consists in acknowledging the complexity of scientific practice, and trying to assess its rationality. Hence, while we are careful not to abstract away from the details of scientific practice, our approach is not strictly descriptive: our goal is to state in what conditions empirical science can rely on computer simulations. In order to do so, we need to adopt a renewed epistemological framework, whose categories would enable us to give a finer-grained, and better-fitted analysis of the rationality of scientific practice. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the relationship between place and self can be accounted for by recent theoretical work on autobiographical memory. The link between place and self is conceptualized as a transitory mental representation that emerges as a “place of mine” (personal autobiographical experience) from a “place” (declarative knowledge). The function of “place of mine” is to guide personal memory and self-knowing consciousness of periods of our lives. I combine inquiries of memory, self, and place in a triadic (...) relationship, a synthesis, suggesting a conceptual model for the phenomenon of place-related self as a sub-system of the self. This is formed by a causal progression from a physical place across time via emotional and cognitive bonds, components of the autobiographical information grounding the self, apportioned across declarative memory. Finally, using the methods of factor analysis and structural equation modeling, I show that the proposed model accounts for previous and new data on place-related identity. (shrink)

There are two distinct strands within modern philosophical ethics that are relevant to environmental philosophy: an empiricist strand that seeks a naturalist account of human conduct and a humanist strand rooted in a conception of transcendent human freedom. Each strand has its appeal, but each also raises both strategic and theoretical problems for environmental philosophers. Based on a reading of Kant's critical solution to the antinomy of freedom and nature, I recommend that environmental philosophers consider the possibility of a Darwinian (...) humanism, through which moral agents are understood as both free and causally intertwined with the natural world. (shrink)

Abstract Havi Carel has recently argued that one can be ill and happy. An ill person can ?positively respond? to illness by cultivating ?adaptability? and ?creativity?. I propose that Carel's claim can be augmented by connecting it with virtue ethics. The positive responses which Carel describes are best understood as the cultivation of virtues, and this adds a significant moral aspect to coping with illness. I then defend this claim against two sets of objections and conclude that interpreting Carel's phenomenology (...) of illness within a virtue-ethical framework enriches our understanding of how illness can be edifying. (shrink)

The idea of the missing shade of blue presents a difficulty for Hume's first principle that ‘all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspond...

David Hume has warned us not to endeavor to derive an “ought” from an “is” (1990, 469–70), reprimanding those who attempt to draw value judgments from empirical facts. But Judith Jarvis Thomson refuses to accept that values and facts are logically disjoint in this manner, primarily because of her worry that such a partition of our moral values from the “facts” will place a grave limitation on any ethical system, namely, that its claims apparently cannot be proven. Consequently, Thomson is (...) on the lookout for some provably true facts that can be used, contra Hume, to draw conclusions about moral values. Thomson begins by rejecting all generalist conceptions of the good (specifically, the utilitarian's identification of the good with pleasure) and proceeds to fracture the good into various kinds of “goodness in a way,” hoping to produce by this disintegration some moral facts that can be used to set ethics on an objective foundation. But I will argue that Thomson's so‐called objective facts are actually nothing but disguised moral claims, and that in attempting to sidestep the classic fallacy identified by Hume, she has blundered into another pitfall—the Smuggler's Fallacy, the offense of concealing her moral conclusions inside the premises of her argument. (shrink)

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) is a condition in which a person appears to possess more than one personality, and sometimes very many. Some recent criminal cases involving defendants with DID have resulted in "not guilty" verdicts, though the defense is not always successful in this regard. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Stephen Behnke have argued that we should excuse DID sufferers from responsibility, only if at the time of the act the person was insane (typically delusional); (...) otherwise the presumption should be that persons with DID are indeed responsible for their actions. We find their interpretation of DID and of the way in which the requirements for criminal insanity relate to this condition worrying and likely to result in injustice to DID sufferers. Our thesis is that persons with DID cannot be responsible for their actions if the usual features of the condition are present. A person with DID is a single person in the grip of a very serious mental disorder. By focusing on the features of DID which have, as we argue, the effect of deluding the patient, we try to show that such a person is unable to fulfill the ordinary conditions of responsible agency (namely, autonomy and self-control). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that cases of radical selftransformation (cases in which an agent willfully changes a foundational element of their motivational structure) constitute an important philosophical puzzle. Though our inclination to hold people responsible for such changes suggests that we regard radical transformation as (in some sense) self-determined, it is difficult to conceive how a transformation that extends to the heart of an agent’s practical life can be attributed to the agent at all. While I contend that the (...) best way to solve this puzzle is to deny that radical transformations are in fact self-determined, many maintain the opposite. The defense of my thesis involves showing how the conditions that must be met in order to coherently attribute transformation to an agent are not satisfied in cases of radical transformation. Radical transformation is, thus, something that happens to an agent, not something that is done by her. (shrink)

People often assign ownership to the person who has invested labor into making an object (labor rule). However, labor usually improves objects and increases their value, and it has not been investigated whether these considerations underlie people's use of the labor rule. We presented participants with third-party ownership conflicts between an owner of materials and an artist who used the materials for some artwork. Experiment 1 revealed that participants were more likely to transfer ownership to the artist for low-value materials (...) than for high-value materials, and Experiment 2 showed that this effect was further moderated by the amount of effort the artist had invested. A third experiment confirmed that participants transferred ownership more often if the artist's labor had increased the value of the materials than when it had added no value. These findings suggest that considerations for value underlie ownership transfers following the investment of labor. (shrink)

Kripke's argument against the identity theory in the philosophy of mind runs as follows. Suppose some psychophysical identity statement S is true. Then S would seem to be contingent at least in the sense that S seems possibly false. And given that seeming contingency entails genuine contingency when it comes to such statements S is contingent. But S is necessary if true. So S is false. This entry considers responses to each of the three premises. It turns out that each (...) response does not fully withstand scrutiny, and so Kripke's conclusion is hard to resist. Section 1 lays out Kripke's argument, and Sections 2 to 4 then discuss responses to each of the three premises respectively. (shrink)

The full-text of this article is not available in ORA, but you may be able to access the article via the publisher copy link on this record page.

Accounts of virtue suffer a conflation problem when they appear unable to preserve intuitive distinctions between types of virtue. In this essay I argue that a number of influential attempts to preserve the distinction between moral and epistemic virtues fail, on the grounds that they characterize virtuous traits in terms of ‘characteristic motivation’. I claim that this does not distinguish virtuous traits at the level of value‐conferring quality, and I propose that the best alternative is to distinguish them at the (...) level of good produced. It follows from this that a consequentialist account is best placed to avoid a conflation of moral and epistemic virtue. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that theists are extremely well-situated with respect to developing metaethical accounts that qualify as ‘robust’ versions of moral realism. In the first part of the essay, a number of metaethical desiderata are identified. In the second part, theistic strategies for accommodating those desiderata are explained and defended. The upshot is that, contrary to the received philosophical wisdom, there are good theoretical reasons for theistic philosophers to seek to develop metaethical accounts that ground moral facts in (...) facts about God. (shrink)

After a thorough examination of the claim that "the underdetermination of theory by evidence forces us to seek sociological explanations of scientists' cognitive choices", Samir Okasha concludes that the only significant problem with this argument is that the thesis of underdetermination is not adequately supported. Against Okasha, I argue (1) that there is a very good reason to question the inference from the underdetermination of a theory to a sociological account of that theory's acceptance, and (2) that Okasha's own objection (...) to the argument is too weak. (shrink)

Abstract Is it plausible to claim (some) non?human animals have beliefs, on the (non?behaviourist) assumption that believing is or involves subjects? engaging in practical reasoning which takes account of meanings? Some answer Yes, on the ground that evolutionary continuities linking humans with other animals must include psychological ones. But (1) evolution does not operate?even primarily?by means of continuities. Thus species, no matter how closely related (in fact, sometimes even conspecifics) operate with very different adaptive ?tricks'; and it is plausible to (...) think these, rather than the physiological ?groundings? underlying them, are the best means of (analogies for) explaining beliefs. Also (2) it is reasonable to assimilate most cases ?down? to creatures (e.g. flies) that obviously lack beliefs rather than ?up? to others (chimpanzees) that apparently possess belief?like states (proto?beliefs), because observation shows the internal workings of such middle animals? ?beliefs? differ markedly from the corresponding things humans do. For example, ducks do not have beliefs about the numbers of objects, because although they estimate numerically, they do it in a way that is much more firmly connected to perceiving than would be the case either with counting or a counting?like process. (shrink)

This paper considers Hegel's views on space and his account of Kant's theory of space. I show that Hegel's discussions of space exhibit a deep understanding of Kant's apriority argument in the first Critique , commit him to the central premise of that argument, and separate his concerns from the familiar problem of the neglected alternative. Nevertheless, Hegel makes two objections to Kant's theory of space. First, he argues that the theory is internally inconsistent insofar as Kant's identification of space (...) with an a priori intuition is incompatible with the doctrine of productive imagination in the transcendental deduction of the categories. Second, Hegel argues that the apriority argument is insufficiently critical insofar as it relies upon an unexamined theory of subjectivity as a set of representational capacities. I conclude by outlining Hegel's strategy for undermining the assumptions concerning subjectivity that give form to Kant's transcendental philosophy. Because Hegel's positive views on space depend upon his articulation of an alternate notion of subjectivity, the account of Hegel's position on space offered here remains incomplete. On the other hand, considering Hegel's discussions of space demonstrates both the nature and the importance of his examination of subjectivity in the Phenomenology. (shrink)

In a recent essay Robert Sugden sets out his view that two foundational institutions of the social order, the convention and the social contract (at least in one variant of the latter) are compatible and that therefore it is not self-contradictory to be a Humean and a contractarian at the same time.¹ The proposition, despite appearances, has greater practical importance than most other doctrinal ones tend to do for if widely conceded, it would render current political thought even more woolly (...) than it is already. If so, a critical scrutiny might be of some use. (shrink)