What sort of connection is there between business ethics and philosophy? The answer given here: a weak one, but it may be getting stronger. Comparatively few business ethics articles are structurally dependent on mainstream academic philosophy or on such sub-specialities thereof as normative ethics, moral theory, and social and political philosophy. Examining articles recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics that declare some dependence, the author finds that such declarations often constitute only a pro forma gesture which could be (...) omitted without detriment to the paper's content and conclusions. He also finds, however, that some authors do draw on solid philosophical work in ways that are establishing ever more meaningful interconnections between business ethics and academic philosophy. These cross-disciplinary studies, he concludes, are ground-breaking and invite creative imitation. (shrink)

This paper proposes a way to undercut anarchist objections to taxation without endorsing an authoritarian justification of government coercion. The argument involves public goods, as understood by economists and others. But I do not analyse options of autonomous prisoners and the like; for, however useful otherwise, these abstractions underestimate the real-world task of sorting out the prerogatives of and limits on ownership. Proceeding more contextually, I come to recommend a shareholder addendum to the doctrine of public goods. This recommendation involves (...) modifying the public goods argument for government coercion to include a contributor-specific compensation provisio, thinking of contributors as investors, and including among the latter those whose investment is in the form not of a market transaction strictly speaking but of sacrifice. To reach this recommendation I constrain the market liberal''s limited endorsement of taxation by drawing on the (idealized) postcommunist privatizer''s continuing commitment to populism. (shrink)

Business ethicists should examine not only business practices but whether a particular type of business is even prima facie ethical. To illustrate how this might be done I here examine the contemporary U.S. defense industry. In the past the U.S. military has engaged in missions that arguably satisfied the just war self-defense rationale, thereby implying that its suppliers of equipment and services were ethical as well. Some recent U.S. military missions, however, arguably fail the self-defense rationale. At issue, then, is (...) whether a business supporting these latter missions may not be circumstantially unethical. No it is not, say defense industry advocates, for two principal reasons. For one, this business benefits society at large in numerous ways. And, for another, the organizer of these military missions is a superpower which by its very nature is not subject to the ethical constraints of the self-defense rationale. I dispute both reasons, argue against the second, and conclude that the U.S. military-industrial complex (MIC) is circumstantially unethical. (shrink)

A complimentary assessment of Blum's award-winning book about racism and its affects. Well written as it is, it needs to be supplemented with a definition of racial injustice, and also to analyze racism not only on the level of individual morality but from a human rights perspective that discredits political and economic motives for racism (e.g., by drawing on Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism).

Just war theory needs to become a real-time critique of government war propaganda in order to facilitate peace advocacy ante bellum. This involves countering asserted justificatory reasons with demonstrable facts that reveal other motives, thereby yielding reflective understanding which can be collectivized via electronic media. As a case in point, I compare here the publicly declared reasons for the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq in 2003 with reasons discussed internally months and even years before in government and think-tank documents. These sources (...) show that control of oil rather than regime change or a WMD threat was theunderlying motive. Neo-conservatives in the Bush Administration justified such deception by citing an exoteric/esoteric distinction traceable to Plato via Leo Strauss. As with the Iraq invasion, so in general such propaganda and its rationalizations can be undermined by investigative journalism understood as ranging from fact gathering to rhetorical analysis and critique. (shrink)

The U.S. doctrine of employment-at-will, modified legislatively for protected groups, is being less harshly applied to managerial personnel. Comparable compensation is not otherwise available in the U.S. to workers displaced by technology. Nine pairs of arguments are presented to show how fundamentally management and labor disagree about a company's responsibility for its former employees. These arguments, born of years of labor-management debate, are kaleidoscopic claims about which side has what power. Ultimately, however, not even both together can solve without creative (...) public intervention the emerging problem of massive technological unemployment — the other side of the corporate dream of profit without payrolls. (Originally published as "Displaced Workers: Whose Responsibility?" in Social Policy and Conflict Resolution, eds. T. Attig, D. Callen, and R.G. Frey, Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy VI, 1984.). (shrink)

Does addiction to heroin undermine the voluntariness of heroin addicts' consent to take part in research which involves giving them free and legal heroin? This question has been raised in connection with research into the effectiveness of heroin prescription as a way of treating dependent heroin users. Participants in such research are required to give their informed consent to take part. Louis C. Charland has argued that we should not presume that heroin addicts are competent to do this since heroin (...) addiction by nature involves a loss of ability to resist the desire for heroin. In this article, I argue that Charland is right that we should not presume that heroin addicts are competent to consent, but not for the reason he thinks. In fact, as Charland's critics correctly point out, there is plenty of evidence showing that heroin addicts can resist their desire for heroin. These critics are wrong, however, to conclude from this that we should presume that heroin addicts are competent to give their voluntary consent. There are, I shall argue, other conditions associated with heroin addiction that might constrain heroin addicts' choice in ways likely to undermine the voluntariness of their consent. In order to see this, we need to move beyond the focus on the addicts' desires for heroin and instead consider the wider social and psychological circumstances of heroin addiction, as well as the effects these circumstances may have on the addicts' beliefs about the nature of their options. (shrink)

Not the publicly asserted reasons (humanitarianism and self-defense) but cooptation of oil reserves was the objective behind the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This underlying motive utterly fails to satisfy just war jus ad bellum conditions. This prioritization of petroleum is well documented and is consistent with decades old US policy towards the Middle East, especially as codified by Anthony Cordesman in 1998 and US DoD's Strategic Assessment 1999 and then adopted by Bush II. This fraudulent use of military (...) force raises a question as to how motives for war can be accurately identified prior to falsely justified belligerence. Some positive signs are noted herein as to political philosophers' better use of Rawls's reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

An important philosophical issue in the study of addiction is what difference the fact that a person is addicted makes to attributions of autonomy (and responsibility) to their drug-oriented behavior. In spite of accumulating evidence suggesting the role of emotional dysregulation in understanding addiction, it has received surprisingly little attention in the debate about this issue. I claim that, as a result, an important aspect of the autonomy impairment of many addicted individuals has been largely overlooked. A widely shared assumption (...) in the philosophical literature is that for addiction to impair a person’s autonomy it has to make them (in some sense) take drugs against their will. So-called “willing addicts” are therefore usually seen as exempted from the autonomy impairment believed to characterize “unwilling addicts”, the latter being those who ‘truly want’ to stop using drugs but find their attempts repeatedly derailed by failures of self-control. In this article, I argue that the association between addiction and emotional dysregulation shows why this assumption is false. Emotional dysregulation is not only consistent with the possibility that many addicts take drugs ‘willingly’, it supports the hypothesis that they use drugs because they truly want to. The article proposes an explanation for why emotional dysregulation should nevertheless be seen as an aspect of their loss of control and an important reason why they have impaired autonomy. I end by exploring some implications of this account for addict’s decision-making capacity when they are prescribed the drugs to which they are addicted. -/- . (shrink)

Dewey's instrumentalist approach to problem-solving stressed social organization; and under this umbrella he included unionization. First part of this article: his active involvement in and support for the union movement summarized. Second part: his theoretical defense of unions is addressed, especially as to "democratic liberalism" and its implementation in the fabric of society. Third part: a brief account of the current status of unions in universities.

[Collection title in Polish: Prace Naukoznawcze i Prognostvczne].

Some progress has been made in recent decades to articulate corporate social responsibility (CSR) and, more recently, to associate CSR with international enforcement of human rights. This progress continues to be hampered, however, by the ability of a multinational corporation (MNC) that violates human rights not only to shift liability from itself to a nation-state but even to win compensation from that nation-state for loss of profits due to restrictions on its business activities. In the process, the nation-state’s sovereignty is (...) diminishing; and, in effect, though still attributed to nation-states, it is being transferred to the MNC. The main aim of this article is (1) to draw on normative considerations to claim that this MNC proto-sovereignty should be modified and (2) to contend that this can eventually be accomplished by adding to corporate adoption of CSR guidelines a regimen of global human rights enforcement. I base this contention on expectations about the internationalization of corporate criminal law and the globalization of civil society in general and of NGOs in particular. I consider various jurisdictions but I focus on US jurisprudence. (shrink)

Deliberation incompatibilism is the view that an agent being rational and deliberating about which of (mutually excluding) actions to perform, is incompatible with her believing that there exist prior conditions that render impossible the performance of either one of these actions. However, the main argument for this view, associated most prominently with Peter van Inwagen, appears to have been widely rejected by contemporary authors on free will. In this paper I argue first that a closer examination of van Inwagen's argument (...) shows that the standard objections are based on a misunderstanding of the notion of ‘deliberation’ presupposed in this argument. Second, I attempt to strengthen the case for deliberation incompatibilism by offering a different argument in its support. (shrink)

A positive review of a book about four nineteenth century German philosophers (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Marx) who sought to use philosophy to effect political change. To this end they each decided whom to address and how. Their objective: enhance freedom and/or enlightenment. Final topic: the relevance of these writers and their agenda to contemporary philosophy.

What is self-control and how does the concept of self-control relate to the notion of will-power? A widespread philosophical opinion has been that the notion of will-power does not add anything beyond what can be said using other motivational notions, such as strength of desire and intention. One exception is Richard Holton who, inspired by recent research in social psychology, has argued that will-power is a separate faculty needed for persisting in one's resolutions, what he calls 'strength of will'. However, (...) he distinguishes strength of will from self-control. In this paper I argue that will-power is essential also to a certain form of self-control. I support this claim by arguments showing that the traditional philosophical accounts of self-control run into difficulties because they pay insufficient attention to will-power as an independent source of motivation. (shrink)

American business's fascination with both laborsaving devices and low wage environments is causing not only structural unemployment and dissipation of the nation's industrial base but also the deterioration of abandoned host communities. According to individualist understandings of the right of private property, this deterioration is beyond sanction except insofar as it affects the property rights of others. But corporate stockholders and managers should not be considered the only owners of property the value of which is due in part to the (...) investments of employees and of the host community. The contributions of the latter should therefore be adequately recognized in law. Short-term job protection and long-term planning for leisure are helpful. But still more important is a recognition in public policy of the interests of the community in property owned by corporations. There is ample precedent in our legal traditions for public preemption of private property; but in contrast to much taking in the past, this must be exercized in a manner that is truly for the public benefit. (shrink)

The problem of weakness of the will is often thought to arise because of an assumption that freely, deliberately and intentionally doing something must correspond to the agent's positive evaluation of doing that thing. In contemporary philosophy, a very common response to the problem of weakness has been to adopt the view that free, deliberate action does not need to correspond to any positive evaluation at all. Much of the support for this view has come from the difficulties the denial (...) of it has been thought to give rise to, both with respect to giving an account of weakness, as well as explaining the future-directed nature of intentions. In this paper I argue that most of these difficulties only arise for one particular version of the view that free, deliberate action must correspond to a positive evaluation, a version associated with Donald Davidson's account of weakness. However, another version of this view is possible, and I argue that it escapes the standard objections to the Davidsonian account. (shrink)

After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. administration went beyond emergency response towards imperialism, but cloaked its agenda in the rhetoric of fighting ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism.’ After distinguishing between emergency thinking and emergency planning, I question the administration’s “war on terrorism” rhetoric in three stages. First, upon examining the post-9/11 antiterrorism discourse I find that it splits into two agendas: domestic, protect our infrastructure; and foreign, select military targets. Second, I review approaches to emergency planning already in place. Third, after reviewing (...) what philosophers have said about emergencies, I recommend they turn their attention to the biases inherent in and misleading uses of antiterrorist terminology. (shrink)

The intent of this article is to discredit the much used concept (often unstated) of virtuous violence. To begin with, it is a paradox hence in need of not easily achieved justification. Here author's critique focuses on the political myth of prophetic righteousness, the ethical myth of a common good, and the myth of the infinite, which is utilized all too often to bypass finite systems. (Article sharply criticized when first presented to a faculty group.).

Corporate social responsibility has become a focal point for research aimed at extending business ethics to extra-corporate issues; and as a result many companies now seek to at least appear dedicated to one or another version of CSR. This has not affected the arms industry, however. For, this industry has not been discussed in CSR literature, perhaps because few CSR scholars have questioned this industry's privileged status as an instrument of national sovereignty. But major changes in the organization of political (...) communities call traditional views of sovereignty into question. With these considerations in mind I assess the U.S. arms industry on the basis of CSR requirements regarding the environment, social equity, profitability, and use of political power. I find that this industry fails to meet any of these four CSR requirements. Countering a claim that these failings should not be held against arms manufacturers because their products are crucial to national defense, I contend that many of these companies function not as dutiful agents of a nation-state but as politically powerful entities in their own right. So, I conclude, they should be held responsible for the foreseeable consequences that flow from use of their products. This responsibility should include civil liability and, in cases involving war crimes and violations of human rights, responsibility under international human rights standards. (shrink)

This review of Ellul's The Technological System plus a book of essays that attempt to interpret Ellul notes how negatively his earlier work was received by English-speaking readers and how poorly he wins them over in this book. He argues that there is "a technological system" that is embedded in society and cannot be controlled however much government may try. Government may be deemed the villain of this book and computers the heroes. The Third World, not yet subject to the (...) system, will in time become so. According to the essays in the other book, the best way to view technology is from the perspective of Christian theology, and Ellul agrees. (shrink)

This year's book award committee reviewed thirty nominated books. We identified seven finalists, each well worth our special attention: Milton Fisk's impressive Towards a Healthy Society, Gary Francione's feisty Introduction to Animal Rights, Timothy Gaffaney's engaging Freedom for the Poor, David Ingram's historically insightful Group Rights, Rachel Roth's poignant Making Women Pay, Karen Warren's finely articulated Ecofeminist Philosophy, and the eventual winning entry, Phillip Cole's Philosophies of Exclusion: Liberal Political Theory and Immigration. We're here today to discuss this important book.

Author argues that an emerging interest group, especially one that seeks to reverse past discrimination against its predecessors in the public arena, is entitled to enhanced consideration as a means of achieving long denied but merited rights. First this thesis is defended by identifying both practical need and theoretical support for emerging interest groups. Then these findings are applied specifically to the rights of women as an emerging interest group. (Publisher left off last word of title: 'Groups'.).

Law and technology , though not equivalent, are intertwined at every phase of a technology's "career." Any technology is directly or indirectly social, and as such becomes a target of regulation intrinsically or in relation to other technologies which it supports or opposes. Competing interests influence major decisions as to which technologies are encouraged or discouraged, heavily regulated or not, banned or not. Examples considered range from bounties to fuel, communication, and transportation preferences.

A work ehic is a value-based motivation for working. In the now developed world, three such values have been stressed over time: soial status, duty, and wealth or, simply, money. Craft pride has also been proffered but is increasingly a victim of automation. Each will be considered here. First, however, a few remarks about how socio-economic conditions influence a society's stance regarding one's obligation to work.

Joseph Butler was an Anglican priest and later a bishop who wrote about ethics, religion, and other philosophical themes. He is not well known today. During his lifetime and into the early part of the twentieth century he was better known especially for his major work the Analogy of Religion (1736). Today he is known mostly for his sermons which are interpreted as essays on ethics and for his essay on identity. Butler had a profound effect on J. H. Newman, (...) Matthew Arnold, and W. E. Gladstone and some effect on many other popular, academic, and professional readers. This book is as much about Butler’s sources and his reception as it is about the way he arranged and presented the evidence in the first half of the 18th century. He was a good man and is recognized by the Anglican church as a divine. We have no interest in taking a nostalgic look at a quaint figure in English church history. To those who claim Butler is unknown, that he was “blown out of the water” by John Wesley or Karl Barth, or Cornelius van Til, we can only say Butler is not as well known in the 20th and 21st centuries as in the 19th, but he is certainly not unknown to those who have taken any interest in philosophy, religion, or ethics. Today there has been a revival of interest in Bishop Butler. Our concern is to build and maintain a bridge that will help to keep this momentum. He offers an ethic that is universal and clearly Christian, yet it is based on the nature of man. Kant had a similar project, but in our opinion, Butler makes more compelling arguments. What is of interest to the Christian apologist is Butler’s work in this area. The purpose of this book is to present Butler’s ideas. We believe that his ethics have a universality that is applicable to people of all religious faiths and those that have none. It is common sense way of looking at ethics for everyday interaction. This book is a narrative argument presenting in detail how Butler’s creative arrangement of the evidence served as a bridge between the ancients as known in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew originals, and the moderns, mostly Anglophone, who constituted Butler’s work environment and his reception in the latter day down to the present. We can hardly expect everyone to agree with Butler on all points, we certainly do not. The point at issue is rather whether he merits a seat at the present-day round table of deliberation on matters pertaining to philosophy, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

This article is by design a response to Alastair M. Taylor's "For Philosophers and Scientists: A General Systems Paradigm." That work is an advance over stage theories. But its focus on modernization tacitly accepts marginalization. Its focus on an undifferentiated evolving human species disregards intra- and intersocietal conflicts. Its uncritical talk of societal energy shifts obscures the reality of conquest and exploitation. If general systems theory is to be truly objective, it should take into account world-around system imbalance and the (...) relevance of Newton's Third Law. (Publisher omitted title of this article and used only its subtitle.). (shrink)

An account of presentations at an historic (4/30/1977) meeting of the recently formed Society for Philosophy and Technology in conjunction with the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago. Speakers on theoretical topics included David Lovekin, Michael Zimmerman, Bernard Gendron and Nancy Holmstrom, and several individuals involved in "outreach activities.".

Survey of (mostly English-language) philosophical studies of techology as of 1987. Includes studies of work as affected by technology, the extent of technology's impact on workers, a comparison between the value of work as seen by synchronists and by diachronists and by feminists, and finally some projections as to work and technology in the future.

Ethical issues that arise because of the transcendent power of globally oriented corporate entities vis-a-vis local communities. Common problems arise from plant closings and automation, here illustrated by cases of restructuring in Indiana. Public use limitations on "eminent domain" decisions are considered. Then attention turns to the lack of constraints available to regulate decisions made by a transnational corporation. Limited applicability of Rawls's contract theory is noted, then ten real-world space-time situations are reported that involve legally uncontrolled harm to locals (...) due to supra-community control by a corporation. (shrink)

Contra mercantile propaganda, technology is "humanized" to the extent that it satisfies or at least permits satisfaction of basic human needs or enhancements. To assess a technology's contribution to humanization requires (1) rejection of the primacy of the machine (cyborg model) and commitment to primacy of the human being (prosthesis model) in man/machine relations, and (2) insistence on the responsibility of managers for consequences of their technology-related decisions. Such decisions are appropriate in this respect to the extent that they help (...) meet basic human needs rather than artificially engendered needs. Meta-evaluation requires active citizen participation in government regulation of technology. (shrink)

The globalization of and technological challenge to the world's workers generate profound ethical problems. Suitable solutions will require governments and civil societies to move beyond the modern tendencies to divinize property rights and base people's income eligibility almost exclusively on their work. Some attention is being paid to the issues involved therein so as to achieve better work/life balance. In some places, in fact, resource-based wealth has been distributed to all citizens, even to those not directly involved in generating the (...) wealth. To maintain and grow such arrangements will be difficult so long as traditional capitalist values like property rights and the work ethic remain dominant. Until this worldview is modified, only the independently wealthy will be able to live decent lives without engaging in wage work. But wageworkers' ability to find such work indefinitely is not assured. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that our own society's philosophy of death and dying has a largely negative effect on public policies towards the elderly, and that these policies will be changed for the better when and if we come to appreciate our elderly as the principal sources of our collective wisdom. Towards these ends, I shall consider in turn some basic types of theories about death, some basic attitudes towards dying and the duration of dying, some models of (...) aging as they affect and/or embody attitudes towards old age, and finally the place of creative expansion in one's advanced years. (shrink)

The idea that development is the expression of information accumulated during evolution and that heredity is the transmission of this information is surprisingly hard to cash out in strict, scientific terms. This paper seeks to do so using the sense of information introduced by Francis Crick in his sequence hypothesis and central dogma of molecular biology. It focuses on Crick's idea of precise determination. This is analysed using an information-theoretic measure of causal specificity. This allows us to reconstruct some of (...) Crick's claims about information in transcription and translation. Crick's approach to information has natural extensions to non-coding regions of DNA, to epigenetic marks, and to the genetic or environmental upstream causes of those epigenetic marks. Epigenetic information cannot be reduced to genetic information. The existence of biological information in epigenetic and exogenetic factors is relevant to evolution as well as to development. (shrink)

Scholarly critiques of the just war tradition have grown in number and sophistication in recent years to the point that available publications now provide the basis for a more philosophically challenging Peace Studies course. Focusing on just a few works published in the past several years, this review explores how professional philosophers are reclaiming the terrain long dominated by the approach of political scientist Michael Walzer. On center stage are British philosopher David Rodin’s critique of the self-defensejustification for war and (...) American philosopher Andrew Fiala’s skeptical assessment of the just war tradition in its entirety. Also considered is a collection of more narrowly focused critiques by philosophers and some highly relevant extra-philosophical studies regarding the social interconnections between authority and violence. (shrink)

John Keane’s book is an important intervention in the debate on the persistent proliferation of violence and its role in political life, especially in democracies.

We describe an approach to measuring biological information where ‘information’ is understood in the sense found in Francis Crick’s foundational contributions to molecular biology. Genes contain information in this sense, but so do epigenetic factors, as many biologists have recognized. The term ‘epigenetic’ is ambiguous, and we introduce a distinction between epigenetic and exogenetic inheritance to clarify one aspect of this ambiguity. These three heredity systems play complementary roles in supplying information for development. -/- We then consider the evolutionary significance (...) of the three inheritance systems. Whilst the genetic inheritance system was the key innovation in the evolution of heredity, in modern organisms the three systems each play important and complementary roles in heredity and evolution. -/- Our focus in the earlier part of the paper is on ‘proximate biology’, where information is a substantial causal factor that causes organisms to develop and causes offspring to resemble their parents. But much philosophical work has focused on information in ‘ultimate biology’. Ultimate information is a way of talking about the evolutionary design of the mechanisms of development and inheritance. We conclude by clarifying the relationship between the two. Ultimate information is not a causal factor that acts in development or heredity, but it can help to explain the evolution of proximate information, which is. (shrink)

The article focuses on Burke’s engagement with India and the Impeachment of Warren Hastings. It attempts to trace the way in which Burke, in his rhetoric on India, uses the sentimentalist vocabulary of the Scottish Enlightenment and, more particularly, the concept of sympathy. Burke, it is suggested, passes from a Humean to a Smithian understanding of sympathy, giving however, at every stage of this development, his own turn and character to the concept. Overall, Burke’s writings on India reveal quite advanced (...) for his time political reflexes and oblige us to reconsider the stereotypic image of Burke as an icon of conservatism. (shrink)

Edmund Burke grounds politics and the state over the pre-political network of moral relations, starting from the family, evolving, through the village, the parish and the town, up to the class and corporation, finally arriving to the nation. These subordinate affections can be geometrically imagined as expanding circles of belonging and, though strictly linked to the state, they are not reducible to it, nor can the state replace them. In Burke’s vision, the state of civil society is humankind’s state (...) of nature, for the reason that man is always, and since ever, a member of a community: we are from somewhere, Burke seems to suggest. Thus, politics is grounded in morality, and morality, in turn, is based on God’s will, which within history takes the form of natural law. The French Revolution, on the contrary, has broken the spontaneity of interactions between individuals and intermediate groups, eventually establishing the Terror. (shrink)

The paper explores Burke’s twofold solution to the paradox of negative emotions. His Philosophical Enquiry (1757/59) employs two models that stand on different anthropological principles: the Exercise Argument borrowed from authors like the Abbé Du Bos, guided by the principle of self-preservation, and the Sympathy Argument, propageted by notable men of lettres such as Lord Kames, ruled by the principle of sociability. Burke interlocks these two arguments through a teleologically-ordered physiology, in which the natural laws of the human body and (...) mind, secretly working in the depth of the nerve fibres, ensure both self-preservation and sociability. Utilizing both efficient and final causes throughout his Enquiry, Burke argues that the experiences of pain and terror – under certain conditions – are made agreeable (delight) by providence,so that the physiological mechanisms underlying these experiences could ensure the health and strenuousness of the nerve fibres amidst the corrupting pleasures of commercial society (Exercise Argument). Furthermore, due to the ambiguous character of this delight annexed to such experiences, they also function as exercises for our social passions (Sympathy Argument). Te 'egoistic' anthropological drive to remove the visceral uneasiness that dominates these experiences facilitates moral action when it is needed the most: when others in pain need our help. In accordance with the anthropocentric providentialism of the moderate Enlightenment, it is the design of the human frame that ensures the activities essential to our health (self-preservation) and moral conduct (sociability), a design that not only guarantees that pleasure, if exclusive and excessive, is 'inconvenient', and pain, if mitigated and harmless, is aesthetically agreeable, but also that our 'egoistic' drive to self-preservation ultimately improves sociability. (shrink)

Whether Edmund Husserl is a realist or idealist or metaphysically neutral is still often debated among his commentators. Instead of making an over-generalized claim about Husserl’s thought, this study only focuses on intentionality theory to know toward which Husserl is metaphysically committed in that theory. This study, therefore, aims to metaphysically reconstruct Husserl’s theory of intentionality and then prove that the theory is realist, not idealist nor metaphysically neutral. By using the textual analysis method, this study finds four important (...) points in Husserl’s works regarding intentionality theory. Firstly, in the Husserlian framework of intentionality, consciousness always intends its objects through the mediation of a certain meaning. Secondly, objects toward which consciousness is directed are transcendent and independent from consciousness. Thirdly, a single object can be intended by consciousness through different meanings according to the perspective that determines the intention. Therefore, fourthly, Husserl’s theory of intentionality can be categorized as one version of perspectival realism. (shrink)

Husserl came over to philosophy from mathematics and he devoted many years to the formulation of a firm foundation for Philosophy that could even secure the status of "science" for it. But unlike some of his contemporaries (like Frege and Russell), he did not seek salvation for philosophy in the mathematical method. He argued philosophy (like any other field of study) should pay attention to uninterpreted basic experience and this would lead the way to understanding the essence of things. Essence, (...) then, would become conscious and this process was addressed by him as “phenomenological reduction.”. (shrink)

This present collection of (translations of) reviews is intended to help obtain a more balanced picture of the reception and impact of Edmund Husserl’s first book, the 1891 Philosophy of Arithmetic. One of the insights to be gained from this non-exhaustive collection of reviews is that the Philosophy of Arithmetic had a much more widespread reception than hitherto assumed: in the present collection alone there already are fourteen, all published between 1891 and 1895. Three of the reviews appeared in (...) mathematical journals (Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik, Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik, and Zeitschrift für mathema- tischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht), three were published in English journals (The Philosophical Review, The Monist, Mind), two were written by other members of the School of Brentano (Franz Hillebrand and Alois Höfler). Some of the reviews and notices appear to be very superficial, consisting merely of para- phrases (often without references) and lists of topics taken from the table of con- tents, presenting barely acceptable summaries. Others, among which Höfler might be the most significant, engage much more deeply with the topics and problems that Husserl addresses, analyzing his approach in the context of the mathematics of his time and the School of Brentano. (shrink)

Edmund Burke’s political philosophy is generally known as the theoretical foundation of Western conservatism. In his intellectual elaboration, society is an organic complex organized in many stratified social classes. But who has the right to lead the community towards the common good? Burke’s answer to that question is: the natural aristocracy. Being the society «a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society» – so writes Burke –, all creatures are «each in their appointed place». And the group (...) destined to lead the whole is represented by the natural aristocracy. However, this aristocracy shouldn’t be entirely confused with the big landowners and with the traditional nobility; rather, Burke’s vision is founded over a classical concept based on virtue and wisdom, and the natural aristocrats are described as «those who are virtute et honore majores». Hence, the aristocracy of birth and wealth is only a part of it — and every civil society will develop a natural aristocracy, or else fall into chaos and subversion. (shrink)

This dissertation explores and argues for the import of the imagination (Phantasie) in Edmund Husserl's phenomenological method of inquiry. It contends that Husserl's extensive analyses of the imagination influenced how he came to conceive the phenomenological method throughout the main stages of his philosophical career. The work clarifies Husserl's complex method of investigation by considering the role of the imagination in his main methodological apparatuses: the phenomenological, eidetic, and transcendental reductions, and eidetic variation - all of which remained ambiguous (...) despite his extensive programmatic discussions. The work illuminates and clarifies aspects of the Husserlian phenomenological method never before explored. -/- In order to clarify Husserl's eidetic method of inquiry, I propose a new way of thinking about the imagination - as direct intuitive presentation (eigentliche anschauliche Vorstellung) and as horizonal-nexic level of consciousness exhibiting the neutrality, freedom, and possibility as its essential features. Following Husserl's studies of the imagination, I propose a three-level model of consciousness (realizing, imagining, and eidetic) and explore the dynamic flexibility of each level (as horizon within which acts such as judgments or memories can unfold). This model of consciousness allows for a rethinking of the sources and conditions for the possibility of eidetic phenomenological inquiry - topics Husserl was mostly silent about. -/- Through a rethinking of the model of consciousness, I propose a tight and substantial relationship between the natural (everyday) and artificial (methodological, theoretical) attitudes. I argue that the structure and systems of possibilities pertaining to the artificial attitude - i.e., our actual as well as possible methodological tools - are structurally and well as informationally bound to the structure and system of possibilities pertaining to the natural attitude. In order to explore the nature of the relationship between these two attitudes I argue that we must take a closer look at the structure and abilities of imagining consciousness - the sole nexic-horizonal level that can function both naturally and artificially. This insight regarding the nature of consciousness clarifies Husserl's transcendental idealism in its intimate connection to the everyday. Understanding Husserl's philosophical stance is thus purged of all possibility of mistakenly labeling it as entailing immanent detachment, solipsism, or Platonic idealism. (shrink)

While Husserl is widely recognised as the founder of the phenomenological movement, and as responsible for important positions on a number of central philosophical topics (such as, for instance, perception, intentionality, self-consciousness, and the tenability of naturalism), he is frequently regarded, even within phenomenological circles, as having a fairly impoverished understanding of the emotions. And indeed, there is some validity to the observation that, while essential roles are accorded to emotion in Husserl’s phenomenological analyses of personhood, (axiological) reason, value-theory, and (...) ethics (to name just a few examples), it emerges less frequently in his writings as a central theme of inquiry. The following chapter offers the reader an opportunity to reconsider such an assessment, by highlighting and explicating a number of key claims that emerge in those writings where Husserl deals directly and thematically with the phenomenology of emotional life. Focussing mainly on his most productive and significant period as a phenomenologist of the emotions—dating between the publication of 'Logical Investigations' in 1900 and 'Ideas I' in 1913—it indicates that Husserl’s published and unpublished writings contain important contributions to the phenomenological study of emotional life, and to our understanding of the emotions more broadly. (shrink)

The paper investigates the role played by pre-scientific experience in the philosophy of Josiah Royce and Edmund Husserl. Such a notion, generally associated with Husserl’s conception of the life-world (Lebenswelt) in the Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1936), finds an equivalent and historical antecedent in Royce’s distinction between a world of description and a world of appreciation. The final goal is to show how, despite their different philosophical frameworks, Royce and Husserl agree on the idea that, through (...) the rejection of the world given through mere perception (Lebenswelt/world of appreciation), European sciences have somehow failed their task of universality. As it will be shown, this idea is also due to methodological affinities among the two thinkers. The experience of interconnectedness among individual minds, while precluded in the mere scientific explanation of the world, it becomes possible through the enactment of the Lebenswelt or, as in Royce’s case, through a return to the experience of the world of appreciation. (shrink)