In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral AtheismJohn J. TilleyThomas Holden. Spectres of False Divinity: Hume’s Moral Atheism. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xvi + 246. Cloth, $50.00.Thomas Holden argues that a key element of David Hume’s irreligious agenda is his case for moral atheism. According to Holden, Hume defends (conclusively, Hume believes) not merely weak moral atheism, according to which there is no (...) morally praiseworthy deity, but strong moral atheism, according to which there is no deity with any moral characteristics. The idea here is that if any being approximates the traditional notion of God as a first cause or designer, it cannot meet the preconditions for having moral attributes. Holden also discusses arguments that some might expect to be central to Hume’s case but which, according to Holden, are not. For instance, Holden maintains that Hume does not even endorse the evidential argument from evil, let alone use it to support moral atheism. Instead, Hume intends it as a parody of traditional natural theology. Holden closes with several points about the historical and philosophical import of Hume’s moral atheism.Right from the start, Holden faces challenges. How can he square his interpretation of Hume as a moral atheist with Hume’s repeated strictures against theological speculation? And how can he square his interpretation with the fact that Hume never explicitly advocates moral atheism?Holden skillfully meets these challenges. Regarding the first challenge, for example, he distinguishes “core natural theology,” which aims at knowledge of the deity’s distinctive, intrinsic properties, from “liminal natural theology,” which lacks such aims. This distinction, Holden contends, reconciles two elements of Hume’s philosophy that seem to conflict. The first is Hume’s rejection of theological speculation as beyond our cognitive capacities. The second is Hume’s frequent willingness to draw conclusions about divine attributes. Holden argues that although Hume’s strictures against theological speculation pertain to [End Page 297] core natural theology, they are not aimed at liminal natural theology—that is, at speculation about the deity’s non-distinctive or relational properties. Hume’s defense of moral atheism, Holden believes, falls within liminal natural theology.After addressing challenges to his reading of Hume, Holden discusses Hume’s arguments for strong moral atheism. These do not stand out in Hume’s writings (though many of their components do), but Holden finds them there. He does so not through overly imaginative reconstruction but through careful interpretation, with an eye on many texts.Hume’s first argument, the “argument from sentimentalism,” draws on Hume’s theory of the passions and his sentimentalist metaethics. Holden reconstructs it as follows. S1: The deity is not a natural object of any human passion. S2: Moral sentiments are a species of human passion. S3: If a being is not a natural object of the moral sentiments, then it cannot have moral attributes (either virtues or vices). Therefore, S4: The deity cannot have moral attributes. The first premise is the least familiar of the three, and Holden devotes considerable effort to clarifying it, examining Hume’s rationale for it, and addressing objections to it. He performs similar tasks regarding S2, S3, and the argument in general. For instance, he addresses at length three possible objections to the argument, his concern being that if they were sufficiently damaging (he argues that they are not), this might tell against interpreting Hume as advancing the argument.Hume’s second argument, the “argument from motivation,” goes roughly as follows. Although we know nothing about the deity’s distinctive intrinsic properties, we have good reason to think that most likely, the deity (like any unknown being picked out in advance) lacks a sentimental nature anything like ours. But without a sentimental nature akin to ours, a being’s behavior is not intelligible in human terms—for example, it cannot be said to reflect moral concern or such motives as malice and benevolence. And if a being’s behavior is not intelligible in human terms, that being is not morally assessable, which is to say that it lacks moral attributes. Thus, we should conclude that the deity most likely lacks such attributes. Holden... (shrink)

contents: -/- 1. the Romantic fragment 2. life would want to die, a little 3. pain itself is the meaning, in Nietzsche 4. martyrs do not underrate the body 5. inwardly, an Actor prepares 5b. brother, bro: it's only you that overhears you 5c. J is like Hamlet / Herzog / Holden Caulfield / Raskolnikov 5d. they take him to a basement and they feed him METH 6. a surface is revealed / the depths are all inferred 6b. my (...) Self is all depth: a long internal vertical 6c. Joyce knows not the inside of ideas 6d. perception of depth is maladaptive 7. by knowing Death, humans are the Woken Ones 8. all as straw, or graphomania 8b. i tend to write thru / tho unless i'm imitating English 9. Finnegans Wake as Literature's endgame 10. Hard Realism: Hemingway, Knausgård 11. the cause of pain, in Buddhism 11b. duḥkha is uh-hukha: the gut's double throb. (shrink)

The controversy over the old ideal of “value-free science” has cooled significantly over the past decade. Many philosophers of science now agree that even ethical and political values may play a substantial role in all aspects of scientific inquiry. Consequently, in the last few years, work in science and values has become more specific: Which values may influence science, and in which ways? Or, how do we distinguish illegitimate from illegitimate kinds of influence? In this paper, I argue that this (...) problem requires philosophers of science to take a new direction. I present two case studies in the influence of values on scientific inquiry: feminist values in archaeology and commercial values in pharmaceutical research. I offer a preliminary assessment of these cases, that the influence of values was legitimate in the feminist case, but not in the pharmaceutical case. I then turn to three major approaches to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate influences of values, including the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic values and Heather Douglas’ distinction between direct and indirect roles for values. I argue that none of these three approaches gives an adequate analysis of the two cases. In the concluding section, I briefly sketch my own approach, which draws more heavily on ethics than the others, and is more promising as a solution to the current problem. This is the new direction in which I think science and values should move. (shrink)

Several variants of Lewis's Best System Account of Lawhood have been proposed that avoid its commitment to perfectly natural properties. There has been little discussion of the relative merits of these proposals, and little discussion of how one might extend this strategy to provide natural property-free variants of Lewis's other accounts, such as his accounts of duplication, intrinsicality, causation, counterfactuals, and reference. We undertake these projects in this paper. We begin by providing a framework for classifying and assessing the variants (...) of the Best System Account. We then evaluate these proposals, and identify the most promising candidates. We go on to develop a proposal for systematically modifying Lewis's other accounts so that they, too, avoid commitment to perfectly natural properties. We conclude by briefly considering a different route one might take to developing natural property-free versions of Lewis's other accounts, drawing on recent work by Williams. (shrink)

The primary quantum mechanical equation of motion entails that measurements typically do not have determinate outcomes, but result in superpositions of all possible outcomes. Dynamical collapse theories (e.g. GRW) supplement this equation with a stochastic Gaussian collapse function, intended to collapse the superposition of outcomes into one outcome. But the Gaussian collapses are imperfect in a way that leaves the superpositions intact. This is the tails problem. There are several ways of making this problem more precise. But many authors dismiss (...) the problem without considering the more severe formulations. Here I distinguish four distinct tails problems. The first (bare tails problem) and second (structured tails problem) exist in the literature. I argue that while the first is a pseudo-problem, the second has not been adequately addressed. The third (multiverse tails problem) reformulates the second to account for recently discovered dynamical consequences of collapse. Finally the fourth (tails problem dilemma) shows that solving the third by replacing the Gaussian with a non-Gaussian collapse function introduces new conflict with relativity theory. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the value of epistemic justification cannot be adequately explained as being instrumental to truth. I intend to show that false belief, which is no means to truth, can nevertheless still be of epistemic value. This in turn will make a good prima facie case that justification is valuable for its own sake. If this is right, we will have also found reason to think that truth value monism is false: assuming that true belief does (...) have value, there is more of final epistemic value than mere true belief. (shrink)

Every tenable ethical theory must have an account of moral virtue and vice. Julia Driver has performed a great service for utilitarians by developing a utilitarian account of moral virtue that complements a broader act-based utilitarian ethical theory. In her view, a moral virtue is a psychological disposition that systematically produces good states of affairs in a particular possible world. My goal is to construct a more plausible version of Driver’s account that nevertheless maintains its basic integrity. I aim to (...) accomplish this goal by developing four problems concerning admiration and luck for Driver’s account. Subsequently, I modify the account in a way that partially or entirely mitigates each difficulty. Finally, I attempt to undermine Driver’s rationale for rejecting the modification and explore how well the modified account of moral virtue fits with utilitarian accounts of right action. (shrink)

The main question addressed in this paper is whether some false sentences can constitute evidence for the truth of other propositions. In this paper it is argued that there are good reasons to suspect that at least some false propositions can constitute evidence for the truth of certain other contingent propositions. The paper also introduces a novel condition concerning propositions that constitute evidence that explains a ubiquitous evidential practice and it contains a defense of a particular condition concerning the possession (...) of evidence. The core position adopted here then is that false propositions that are approximately true reports of measurements can constitute evidence for the truth of other propositions. So, it will be argued that evidence is only quasi-factive in this very specific sense. (shrink)

Frege’s distinction between force and sense is a central pillar of modern thinking about meaning. This is the idea that a self-standing utterance of a sentence S can be divided into two components. One is the proposition P that S’s linguistic meaning and context associates with it. The other is S’s illocutionary force. The force/sense distinction is associated with another thesis, the embedding principle, that implies that the only content that embeds in compound sentences is propositional content. We argue that (...) both the Force/Sense distinction and the principle of embedding are seriously challenged by figurative language, and irony in particular. We conclude that theorists need to go back to the drawing board about the nature of illocutionary acts. (shrink)

This article considers the implications of inferentialist philosophy of language for debates in the historiography of philosophy. My intention is to mediate and refine the polemics between contextualist historians and ‘analytic’ or presentist historians. I claim that much of Robert Brandom’s nuanced defence of presentism can be accepted and even adopted by contextualists, so that inferentialism turns out to provide an important justification for orthodox history of philosophy. In the concluding sections I argue that the application of Brandom’s theory has (...) important limits, and that some polemics by contextualists against presentists are therefore justified. (shrink)

According to dispositionalism, de re modality is grounded in the intrinsic natures of dispositional properties. Those properties are able to serve as the ground of de re modal truths, it is said, because they bear a special relation to counterfactual conditionals, one of truthmaking. However, because dispositionalism purports to ground de re modality only on the intrinsic natures of dispositional properties, it had better be the case that they do not play that truthmaking role merely in virtue of their being (...) embedded in some particular, extrinsic causal context. This paper examines a recent argument against dispositionalism that purports to show that the intrinsicality of that relation cannot be maintained, due to the ceteris paribus nature of the counterfactuals that dispositions make-true. When two prominent responses are examined, both are found wanting: at best, they require unjustified special pleading, and at worst, they amount to little more than ad hoc conceptual trickery. (shrink)

Synesthesia is the “union of the senses” whereby two or more of the five senses that are normally experienced separately are involuntarily and automatically joined together in experience. For example, some synesthetes experience a color when they hear a sound or see a letter. In this paper, I examine two cases of synesthesia in light of the notions of “experiential parts” and “conscious unity.” I first provide some background on the unity of consciousness and the question of experiential parts. I (...) then describe two very different cases of synesthesia. Finally, I critically examine the cases in light of two central notions of “unity.” I argue that there is good reason to think that the neural “vehicles” of conscious states are distributed widely and can include multiple modalities. I also argue that some synesthetic experiences do not really enjoy the same “object unity” associated with normal vision. (shrink)

John Clarke of Hull, one of the eighteenth century's staunchest proponents of psychological egoism, defended that theory in his Foundation of Morality in Theory and Practice. He did so mainly by opposing the objections to egoism in the first two editions of Francis Hutcheson's Inquiry into Virtue. But Clarke also produced a challenging, direct argument for egoism which, regrettably, has received virtually no scholarly attention. In this paper I give it some of the attention it merits. In addition to reconstructing (...) it and addressing interpretive issues about it, I show that it withstands a tempting objection. I also show that although Clarke's argument ultimately fails, to study it is instructive. It illuminates, for example, Hutcheson's likely intentions in a passage relevant to egoism. (shrink)

This paper shows that any view of future contingent claims that treats such claims as having indeterminate truth values or as simply being false implies probabilistic irrationality. This is because such views of the future imply violations of reflection, special reflection and conditionalization.

Alain Badiou is one of the world's most influential living philosophers. Few contemporary thinkers display his breadth of argument and reference, or his ability to intervene in debates critical to both analytic and continental philosophy. Alain Badiou: Key Concepts presents an overview of and introduction to the full range of Badiou's thinking. Essays focus on the foundations of Badiou's thought, his "key concepts" - truth, being, ontology, the subject, and conditions - and on his engagement with a range of thinkers (...) central to his philosophy, including Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Heidegger and Deleuze. (shrink)

Pritchard calls his epistemological disjunctivism ‘the holy grail of epistemology’. What this metaphor means is that the acceptance of this thesis puts the internalism-externalism debate to an end, thanks to satisfaction of intuitions standing behind both competing views. Simultaneously, Pritchard strongly emphasizes that the endorsement of epistemological disjunctivism does not commit one to metaphysical disjunctivism. In this paper I analyze the formulations and motivations of epistemological disjunctivism presented by Pritchard and McDowell. Then I consider the most common argument for the (...) claim that epistemological disjunctivism can be held without the support of metaphysical disjunctivism. I conclude that the plausibility of epistemological disjunctivism depends on the plausibility of metaphysical disjunctivism. If the latter is false, the former postulates a set of conditions for epistemic justification that are impossible to be fulfilled. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Poetics defends the value of tragic poetry, presumably to counter Plato’s critique in the Republic. Can this defense resonate with something larger and rather surprising, that Aristotle’s overall philosophy displays a tragic character? I define the tragic as pertaining to indigenous and inescapable limits on life, knowledge, control, achievement, and agency. I explore how such limits figure in Aristotle’s physics, metaphysics, and biological works. Accordingly I want to disturb the common account of Aristotle’s thought as a neat system of (...) ontological order and metaphysical closure—not to exclude such elements but to place them within a world-view that includes certain limits at the edges of being. (shrink)

Although there are several monistic and dualistic approaches to the mind-body problem on the basis of classical or quantum mechanics, thus far no consensus exists about a solution. Recently, the Elementary Process Theory (EPT) has been developed: this corresponds with a fundamentally new disciplinary matrix for the study of physical reality. The purpose of the present research was to investigate the mind-body problem within this newly developed disciplinary matrix. The main finding is that the idea of a duality of body (...) and mind has to be rejected as an incomplete representation of reality: in the universe of the EPT, man hás to be a trinity of body, spirit and soul, where ‘body’, ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ are names for distinct physical things. The mind is then a mere idea that arises from (self-)experience, but without onto-logical connotation. In addition a mechanism for mental causation, which implies a principle of choice, is rigorously formulated. The main conclusion is that a fundamentally new physicalist approach to the mind-body problem, according to which man has a free will, has been formulated strictly within the language of the EPT. Further physical research is then required to describe how the interaction between body, spirit and soul is to be understood in terms of fundamental interactions. In addition, further philosophical-theological research has to establish whether the presently discussed trinity and the trinities of body, spirit and soul mentioned in the Bible and the Vedic texts are one and the same thing. -/- Edit: a revised version of this preprint has been published as a book chapter. (shrink)

This is my reply to Josh Weisberg, Robert Van Gulick, and William Seager, published in JCS vol 20, 2013. This symposium grew out of an author-meets-critics session at the Central APA conference in 2013 on my 2012 book THE CONSCIOUSNESS PARADOX (MIT Press). Topics covered include higher-order thought (HOT) theory, my own "wide intrinsicality view," the problem of misrepresentation, targetless HOTs, conceptualism, introspection, and the transitivity principle.

Gini coefficients, which measure gross inequalities rather than their unfair components, are often used as proxy measures of absolute or relative distributive injustice in Western societies. This presupposes that the fair inequalities in these societies are small and stable enough to be ignored. This article presents a model for a series of ideal, perfectly just societies, where comfortable lives are equally available to everyone, and calculates the Gini coefficients for each. According to this model, inequalities produced by age and other (...) demographic factors, together with reasonable choices under equal opportunity, can raise the Gini coefficients for perfectly just societies to levels at least as high as those of any current Western country, and can as easily account for differences in Gini coefficients between such societies or within one such society over time. If Gini coefficients at these levels are possible for ideal societies without distributive injustice, then they should not be used as proxy measures of distributive injustice in real societies. (shrink)

I argue that the fundamental dogma that all necessary relations are internal is ungrounded. To motivate my argument, I analyse Moore’s classic ideas on internal relations and take them as an illustration of the common form of reasoning that can mislead us to conclude that all necessary relations are internal. That reasoning illicitly smuggles the idea that necessary properties and relations reflect on identity—in the sense that the loss of a necessary property/relation is a loss of identity—into the separate idea (...) that the loss of a necessary property/relation is a loss of essence. Essence, however, is not identity. So the way seems to be open for the existence of necessary properties/relations which do not belong to the essence of entities; that is, the existence of necessary but external relations. I then offer some examples of such relations. (shrink)

Since the early Medieval Time people contested theological legitimation and rational discursive discours on authority as well as retreated to refuges to escape from any secular or ecclesiastical authority. Modern attempts formulated rational legitimation of authority in several ways: pragmatic authority by Monteigne, Bodin and Hobbes, or the contract authority of Locke and Rousseou. However, Enlightened Anarchism, first formulated in 1793 by the English philosopher William Godwin fulminated against all rational restrictions of human freedom and self-determination. However, we do not (...) analyze anarchism by the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, but by looking for the best actual approach of Anarchist’s ‘Promised Land’. Furthermore, we follow the footsteps of Thoreau’s Walden Pond experiment considered as a place of salvation and prototype of 19th century romantic’s extreme individualism towards Leopold’s ethics of the land. Indeed, Thoreau’s and later Muir’s concepts of refuges are tightly connected to territorial and temporal bio-regional constraints and imply an internally organized public area based on mutualism and Hannah Arendt’s agape. From these ideas of refuges, Aldo Leopold formulated his Land-ethics that claimed integrity and autonomy of the ‘Land’. His foundation is a prototype of the eco-centric free space version of eco-anarchism as formulated by Bookchin. In order to formulate a philosophical foundation of eco-anarchism we reject Newtonian homogeneous space-temporal conception, preceding the whole Modern discours about authority and state. On the contrary, we adopt the pluralistic Leibnizian space-time from which thinking-humans do not dissociate themselves, but participate as part of the rational infrastructure of eco-refuges. In eco-refuges, citizen belong to the civil society that stays in equilibrium with the landscape and all forms of biological life. Space is the boundary condition of human activity and determines how borders, environmental organization and institutes are sustained. Space has its proper essence of sustainability, unity and integrity. The individual feelings of security are embedded in a timelike tradition and evolution of the free space, while individual particular conceptions of space and time integrate into the social processes of identification with the refuge. Therefore, the creation of eco-refuges transforms the actual world of national authorities into a world of anarchistic democratic eco-regional homelands. (shrink)

Abstract:Respect for persons protects patients regarding their own healthcare decisions. Patient informed choice for altruism (PICA) is a proposed means for a fully autonomous patient with decisionmaking capacity to limit his or her own treatment for altruistic reasons. An altruistic decision could bond the patient with others at the end of life. We contend that PICA can also be an advance directive option. The proxy, family, and physicians must be reminded that a patient’s altruistic treatment refusal should be respected.

Lankford’s (2013) essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford’s data. However, I question the success of his follow-on arguments about beauty and goodness.

El presente ensayo se circunscribe dentro de la bioética, pues desarrolla un análisis al caso del español Ramón Sampedro, reflexionando las tensiones que se generan a partir de su deseo de muerte asistida, como mecanismo para alcanzar la muerte digna. La novedad del presente estudio radica en la utilización del principio de la alteridad y el contextual, sin acudir a los principios de Tom L. Beauchamp y James F. Childress, con el objetivo de establecer un parámetro de análisis alterno a (...) casos similares. (shrink)

El artículo analiza la categoría "praxeológica" en el personalismo. La prazis como elemento constitutivo del ser humano y como hecho irrenunciable de la condición humana es analizada para proponer distintos prolegómenos que abren nuevas puertas en esta corriente filosófica de frente a diferentes elementos que desvirtúan a la persona.

La pesquisa pretende analizar las principales tesis presentes en el pensamiento de Paul Ricœur y Emmanuel Lèvinas, a propósito de la muerte y, a partir de sus postulados, establecer un diálogo del cual emerjan desavenencias y concomitancias respecto al tema.

El pensamiento buberiano resulta contestatario ala época actual en cuanto esgrime una crítica al carácter utilitario del modo de vida, en el cual descubre una supremacía de prácticas que evidencian la sobre posición del tener sobre el ser: la época moderna es diagnosticada por el vienés como un clima animado por fuerzas impersonales. Esta caracterización de la sociedad, es asumida por Buber como una consecuencia propia de la modernidad antropológica, que ha desencadenado lo que él denomina “Eclipse de Dios”.

With The Birthright Lottery: Citizenship and Global Inequality, Ayelet Shachar is the first major scholar to put the rich theory of property law theory to work in the realm of citizenship. Assessed on its own criteria, the book delivers on its promise to shake up our thinking on this question. Nevertheless, I argue in this paper that her account is not ultimately persuasive. First, Shachar takes for granted that citizenship is a valuable resource. I suggest that today legal residency is (...) more highly valued that citizenship. Also her defense of the state and the social advantages of having stable citizenship regimes does nothing to confront its decline as the central organizing principle of political life. Last but not least, the modalities of a birthright citizenship levy calls into question the underlying analysis. For instance, the current proposal looks undistinguishable from foreign aid and it would demand much more robust institutional organs of global governance that now exist. The second prong of her argument works at the domestic level as it tackles the problem of under- and over-inclusiveness of birthright citizenship. Here too I have reservations highlighted by modes of implementation. (shrink)

El presente artículo esboza las principales tesis de Martin Buber en torno al hecho educativo, en primer instancia se apela a brindar un acercamiento a su pensamiento dialógico, ya que éste será el fundamento de su planteamiento educativo, una vez alcanzado dicho contacto se procede a realizar un estudio a tres discursos brindados por Buber, específicamente, Discurso sobre lo educativo (Heidelberg, 1925), Formación y cosmovisión (Freie Judische Lehrhaus, 1935), Sobre la educación del carácter (Tel Aviv, 1939). Las consideraciones finales se (...) circunscriben a establecer una síntesis de las tesis buberianas, cuyo objetivo no dista de ser un simple prolegómeno para una educación dialógica. (shrink)

El artículo no pretende ser estudio detallado de la semántica de Gottlob Frege, más bien, se caracteriza por ser un acercamiento a la distinción entre signo (Zeichen), representaciones (Vortellungen), sentido (Sinn) y referencia (Bedeutung) expuesta por el autor. La argumentación fregeana discute la manera desde la cual se puede referir, a través de signos, y como, de éstos, emerge un mundo (tercer mundo), de sentido, que puede estar o no ligado a una referencia. El presente estudio recurre a dos obras (...) fregeanas, especíicamente: ueber sinn und Bedeutung (1892) y Der Gedanke (1918-1919), como fuentes para establecer una distinción que permita un acercamiento preliminar a la semántica fregeana. (shrink)

The Protein Ontology (PRO) provides a formal, logically-based classification of specific protein classes including structured representations of protein isoforms, variants and modified forms. Initially focused on proteins found in human, mouse and Escherichia coli, PRO now includes representations of protein complexes. The PRO Consortium works in concert with the developers of other biomedical ontologies and protein knowledge bases to provide the ability to formally organize and integrate representations of precise protein forms so as to enhance accessibility to results of protein (...) research. PRO (http://pir.georgetown.edu/pro) is part of the Open Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Foundry. (shrink)

This chapter has two main goals: to update philosophers on the state of the art in the scientific psychology of intelligence, and to explain and evaluate challenges to the measurement invariance of intelligence tests. First, we provide a brief history of the scientific psychology of intelligence. Next, we discuss the metaphysics of intelligence in light of scientific studies in psychology and neuroimaging. Finally, we turn to recent skeptical developments related to measurement invariance. These have largely focused on attributability: Where do (...) the mechanisms and dispositions that explain people’s performance on tests of intelligence inhere – in the agent, in the local testing environment, in the culture, or in the interactions among these? After explaining what measurement invariance is in the context of intelligence testing, we explore the phenomenon of stereotype threat as a challenge to measurement invariance, as well as more recent work on overcoming or buffering against stereotype threat. (shrink)

We argue that work on norms provides a way to move beyond debates between proponents of individualist and structuralist approaches to bias, oppression, and injustice. We briefly map out the geography of that debate before presenting Charlotte Witt’s view, showing how her position, and the normative ascriptivism at its heart, seamlessly connects individuals to the social reality they inhabit. We then describe recent empirical work on the psychology of norms and locate the notions of informal institutions and soft structures with (...) respect to it. Finally, we argue that the empirical resources enrich Witt’s ascriptivism, and that the resulting picture shows theorists need not, indeed should not, choose between either the individualist or structuralist camp. (shrink)

To understand Hobbes’s handling of Christian scripture in Part 3 of Leviathan we need to see it in the light of his own radical account of the norms controlling public religious speech and practice as set out in Part 2 and in other works such as De Cive and De Corpore. As these texts make clear, Hobbes holds that we ought rationally to venerate the first cause of all, and that the proper way to venerate this awesome and incomprehensible being (...) is to publicly adopt the local culture’s religious practices, however arbitrary or conventional those practices might be. For the seventeenth-century English subject, the Anglo-Protestant scriptural religion provides the appropriate vehicle to express this rationally mandated religious piety, and thus provides a form of devotion that Hobbes embraces in a spirit of genuine religious reverence. At the same time, he also regards this religion, like all scriptural religions, as a conventional human artifact that, given the ear of the sovereign, he might hope to shape in favor of Hobbesian ideals such as civil obedience, the separation of philosophy from religion, and the extirpation of belief in an immaterial spirit-world. The proposed interpretation dissolves systematic problems facing irreligious readings on the one hand, and more straightforwardly Christian readings on the other. (shrink)

In this article, we aim to map out the complexities which characterise debates about the ethics of vaccine distribution, particularly those surrounding the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. In doing so, we distinguish three general principles which might be used to distribute goods and two ambiguities in how one might wish to spell them out. We then argue that we can understand actual debates around the COVID-19 vaccine – including those over prioritising vaccinating the most vulnerable – as reflecting disagreements (...) over these principles. Finally, we shift our attention away from traditional discussions of distributive justice, highlighting the importance of concerns about risk imposition, special duties, and social roles in explaining debates over the COVID-19 vaccine. We conclude that the normative complexity this article highlights deepens the need for decision-making bodies to be sensitive to public input. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Grace A. de Laguna’s theory of universals in its historical context and in relation to contemporary debates in analytic metaphysics. I explain the central features of her theory, arguing that her theory should be classified as a form of immanent realism and as a powers ontology. I then show in what ways her theory affords a theory of modality in terms of potentialities and discuss some of its consequences along the way.

Intersectionality has utilized various feminist theories that continue subculture of violence thinking about Black men and boys. While intersectional feminists often claim that intersectionality leads to a clearer social analysis of power and hierarchies throughout society and within groups, the categories and claims of intersectionality fail to distinguish themselves from previously racist theories that sought to explain race, class, and gender, based on subcultural values. This article is the first to interrogate the theories used to construct the gendered categories and (...) the assumptions behind Black male positionality under intersectional analyses. Contrary to its promises for more liberated Black identities, intersectionality merely replicates the pseudo-science of racist criminology and presents decades old theories as cutting-edge gender analyses. In short, while intersectionality has allowed Black women to create nuanced experiences and epistemological accounts of Black womanhood, the very same theory has confined Black male experience to the perpetration of violence and defined Black manhood as lesser—merely the exemplification of white masculinity’s pathological excess. (shrink)

We examined the relationship between moral foundations, empathic traits, and moral identity using an online survey via Mechanical Turk. In order to determine how moral foundations contribute to empathic traits and moral identity, we performed classical correlation analysis as well as Bayesian correlation analysis, Bayesian ANCOVA, and Bayesian regression analysis. Results showed that individualizing foundations (harm/care, fairness/reciprocity) and binding foundations (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity) had various different relationships with empathic traits. In addition, the individualizing versus binding foundations showed somewhat reverse relationships (...) with internalization and symbolization of moral identity. This suggests that moral foundations can contribute to further understanding of empathic traits and moral identity and how they relate to moral behavior in reality. We discuss the implications of these results for moral educators when starting to teach students about moral issues. (shrink)

The JTB definition of knowledge has been shown by Gettier to be incomplete: its three conditions are necessary for knowledge, but not sufficient. We argue that the JTB definition can be completed with a very simple fourth condition, namely that the justification for the belief in p must be sufficient to exclude ¬p. It is shown that the resulting JTB+S definition solves the Gettier problem.

The foundational principles of representative democracy are under attack globally. What we desperately need are enlightened and persuasive public intellectuals who can help us see through the fog of our fear, anger, and disillusionment, to find our rational political commitments again. One of these public intellectuals is undoubtedly Yuval Noah Harari, the bestselling author of three recent books – Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Harari is also a frequent contributor in the popular press, and a (...) guest on shows, podcasts, panels, and as a keynote speaker. Add to all this that Harari is acting on his lofty academic ideals through ‘Sapienship’, a multidisciplinary organization he cofounded that advocates for global responsibility, clarifies the global conversation, and focuses attention on the most important global challenges. I single out Harari because I presume many readers will be familiar with his work. He is certainly one of the fastest rising stars of public intellectualism. Unfortunately, his work is undercut by the philosophical positions he put forth in his first bestselling book, Sapiens. In this review/critique I wish to show that in order for Harari advance a coherent political or ideological argument, he must first shore up his philosophical commitments. (shrink)

I contend that Adam Smith and David Hume offer re-interpretations of Aristotle’s notion of greatness of soul, focusing on the kind of magnanimity Aristotle attributes to Socrates. Someone with Socratic magnanimity is worthy of honor, responds moderately to fortune, and is virtuous—just and benevolent. Recent theorists err in claiming that magnanimity is less important to Hume’s account of human excellence than benevolence. In fact, benevolence is a necessary ingredient for the best sort of greatness. Smith’s “Letter to Strahan” attributes this (...) greatness to Hume. It encourages us to admire Hume as an exemplar of human excellence, to seek Hume’s virtues for ourselves, and to approve of the “love of literary fame” which Hume calls his “ruling passion.”. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have argued that if you care about how much goodness your actions generate, or how good the state-of-affairs you actions bring about are, then your attention should be directed towards the very far future. But many don’t care about how much goodness their actions generate, nor do they care about things like “states-of-affairs”. Amongst a multitude of things, many people care about how their actions impact individuals. And they also care about the sorts of justifications they (...) are able to offer for those actions. One moral theory which captures this moral viewpoint is contractualism. In this chapter, I argue that contractualism is, in large part, incompatible with longtermism – the view that, in many contexts, we ought to do that which will most improve the prospects of future people. I then discuss what advice, if any at all, contractualism can offer to the longtermist. (shrink)

Es werden vier verbreitete Verwendungsweisen des Wortes ‘Argument’ beschrieben, an Beispielen erläutert und dann schrittweise expliziert. Die wichtigsten Explikata sind: ‘eine Satzfolge x ist ein deskriptives Argument in Standardform’, ‘ein deskriptives Argument x in Standardform ist bei der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung p stark (bzw. schwach)’, ‘ein Aussagesatz x ist bei der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung p ein Argument für (bzw. gegen) einen Aussagesatz y’, ‘ein geordneter Tripel x von deskriptiven Argumenten in Standardform, von Argumentebenen und von Argumentsträngen ist eine deskriptive Argumenthierarchie in Standardform’, (...) ‘eine deskriptive Argumenthierarchie x in Standardform ist gültig (bzw. ungültig; stichhaltig; konsistent; inkonsistent; sichtlich zirkelhaft; stark (bzw. schwach) bei der subjektiven Wahrscheinlichkeitsverteilung p)’. (shrink)