This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

The question "Why?" that is deployed in these exchanges evidently bears the "special sense" Elizabeth Anscombe has linked to the concepts of intention and of a reason for action; it is the sort of question "Why?" that asks for what Donald Davidson later called a "rationalization".2 The special character of what is given, in each response, as formulating a reason ── a description, namely, of the agent as actually doing something, and, moreover, as..

Darwin''s biology was teleological only if the term teleology is defined in a manner that fails to recognize his contribution to the metaphysics and epistemology of modern science. His use of teleological metaphors in a strictly teleonomic context is irrelevant to the meaning of his discourse. The myth of Darwin''s alleged teleology is partly due to misinterpretations of discussions about whether morphology should be a purely formal science. Merely rejecting such notions as special creation and vitalism does not prevent the (...) pernicious effects of teleological reasoning, even at the present time. (shrink)

By means of a survey of the papers given at the XIX Symposium of theSociety for History of Sciences on the „Idea of Purposiveness in the History of the Sciences“, Mai 28–30, 1981 in Bamberg, West Germany, it is demonstrated that in the course of the history of science teleological thinking in its traditional form is increasingly eliminated from the sciences. This process culminates in the attempt to rehabilitate teleological thinking by means of a reconstruction of Aristotelian philosophy using the (...) tools of modern natural science. The question arises whether this signifies the end of teleological thinking or a new direction of genuinely teleological thought. (shrink)

The ultimate source of explanation in biology is the principle of natural selection. Natural selection means differential reproduction of genes and gene combinations. It is a mechanistic process which accounts for the existence in living organisms of end-directed structures and processes. It is argued that teleological explanations in biology are not only acceptable but indeed indispensable. There are at least three categories of biological phenomena where teleological explanations are appropriate.

This book is a provocative contribution to contemporary ethical theory challenging foundational conceptions of character that date back to Aristotle. John Doris draws on behavioral science, especially social psychology, to argue that we misattribute the causes of behavior to personality traits and other fixed aspects of character rather than to the situational context. More often than not it is the situation not the nature of the personality that really counts. The author elaborates the philosophical consequences of this research for a (...) whole array of ethical theories and shows that, once rid of the misleading conception of motivation, moral psychology can support more robust ethical theories and more humane ethical practices. (shrink)

Psychological experiments show that human behavior is often determined by features of the situation rather than general and persistent character traits of the agent. Therefore, it may seem naive to suppose that someone with a virtuous character will in general act virtuously. This is at least true if a character trait is taken to be a persistent characteristic or property that reliably causes certain behavior. On the basis of the conception of agency developed by Anscombe in Intention, I will argue (...) against the assumption that virtues are such persistent traits. Rather, I will suggest that virtues stand in a conceptual relation to ways of acting in kinds of contexts in the same way in which intentions are not causes of actions but stand in a conceptual relation to them. (shrink)