Although Spinoza's formative influence on the cultural ideals of the West is widely recognized, especially with reference to liberal democracy, secular humanism, and naturalistic ethics, little has been written about the educational implications of his philosophy. This article explores the pedagogical tenets that are implicit in Spinoza's writings. I argue (1) that Spinoza's ethics is eudaimonistic, aiming at self‐affirmation, full humanity and wellbeing; (2) that the flourishing of individuals depends on their personal resources, namely, their conatus, power, vitality or capacity (...) to act from their own inner natures; and (3) that the combination of the Spinozian conceptions of humanism, liberal democracy, eudaimonistic ethics, and the enlightened and sovereign individual constitute together the grounds for a comprehensive empowering and liberating pedagogy. (shrink)

The AHP Code of Ethics requires members to serve the best interests of their clients, be clear and honest with them, and keep their secrets confidential. Members pledge to represent their skills and qualifications honestly and to make appropriate referrals to others more qualified when out of their depth.AHP stands for “Associated Hair Professionals,” or hair stylists, but their Code of Ethics looks a lot like the Hippocratic Oath and the current Principles of Medical Ethics of the American Medical Association. (...) All of these ethics statements emphasize honesty, confidentiality, competence, serving patients’ best interests, and willingness to refer to other qualified professionals. But it’s not just doctors and hair professionals who have Codes of Ethics. The SPCP — Society of Permanent Cosmetic Professionals —requires its members to “maintain high professional standards consistent with sound practices,” “conduct business relationships in a manner that is fair to all,” and avoid false or misleading statements to the effect that the application of permanent makeup is not tattooing, not permanent, and not painful. (shrink)

Does Darwinism generally, and human sociobiology in particular, lead to an unwarranted (and possibly socially offensive) determinism? I argue that one must separate out different senses of determinism, and that once one has done this, a Darwinian approach to human nature can be seen to shed important light on our intuitions about free will, constraint, and control.

Among moralists and social critics of several stripes, it is not enough that the right thing be done: they also insist that it be done, and be seen to be done, for the right reasons. They are anxious to know whether we are sending food to starving Africans out of genuinely altruistic concern, or merely to clear domestic commodity markets, for one particularly topical example. Or, for another example, critics of the Brandt Commission’s plea for increased foreign aid more generally (...) say, in stinging rebuke: ‘Many of those who support the proposal... do so out of genuine humanitarian concern about... poverty. But it is doubtful whether this is the main concern of its authors, and it certainly is not their only concern.... They are, instead, primarily concerned with the preservation of the existing world economic order.’What is common to all such cases is an attempt at motive differentiation. Any particular piece of behavior might have sprung from any of a number of different underlying motives; commentators want to know which was the real motive. Here I shall show that this characteristic quest for motive differentiation is misguided. In most of the standard social situations, it makes no material difference to agents’ actions whether they act from one sort of motive or another. And in such circumstances, pressing the motivational issue will usually lead only to mischief, of both a pragmatic and a moral sort. (shrink)

The medical profession has a tradition of presenting itself as exceptionally altruistic. This article challenges the idea that physicians are, or should be, more altruistic than other professionals or other people, and goes so far as to posit that even a professional aspiration of altruism can have negative consequences.

Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (H.P. Owen). Similarly, it is the view that (2) everything that exists constitutes a 'unity' and this all-inclusive unity is in some sense divine (A. MacIntyre). I begin with an account of what the pantheist's ethical position is formally likely to be (...) (e.g. objectivist etc.). I then discuss the relationship between pantheism and ecology in the context of the search for the metaphysical and ethical foundations for an ecological ethic. It is claimed that it is no accident that pantheism is often looked to for such foundations. (shrink)

In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein maintains that “The world is all that is the case.” Some philosophers have seen an advantage in introducing into a formal language either a constant which will represent the world, or an operator, e.g., ‘Max’, such that indicates that p gives a complete description of the actual world, of the world at some instant of time, or of a possible world. Such propositions are called world propositions, possible world propositions, or maximal propositions. For us, a maximal (...) proposition is a possible world proposition; it gives a complete description of one way the world might be. A maximal proposition p is not logically false, and for any proposition q, either p entails q or p entails not-q. (shrink)

Among moralists and social critics of several stripes, it is not enough that the right thing be done: they also insist that it be done, and be seen to be done, for the right reasons. They are anxious to know whether we are sending food to starving Africans out of genuinely altruistic concern, or merely to clear domestic commodity markets, for one particularly topical example. Or, for another example, critics of the Brandt Commission’s plea for increased foreign aid more generally (...) say, in stinging rebuke: ‘Many of those who support the proposal... do so out of genuine humanitarian concern about... poverty. But it is doubtful whether this is the main concern of its authors, and it certainly is not their only concern.... They are, instead, primarily concerned with the preservation of the existing world economic order.’What is common to all such cases is an attempt at motive differentiation. Any particular piece of behavior might have sprung from any of a number of different underlying motives; commentators want to know which was the real motive. Here I shall show that this characteristic quest for motive differentiation is misguided. In most of the standard social situations, it makes no material difference to agents’ actions whether they act from one sort of motive or another. And in such circumstances, pressing the motivational issue will usually lead only to mischief, of both a pragmatic and a moral sort. (shrink)