Il est courant de diviser le champ d’investigation de l’éthique entre trois sous- domaines : la méta-éthique, l’éthique normative et l’éthique appliquée. L’éthique appliquée est le domaine le plus concret : on y traite par exemple des questions de savoir s’il faut autoriser l’avortement, l’euthanasie, la peine de mort... L’éthique normative traite de ces questions à un niveau plus abstrait : elle se demande ce qui fait qu’une action ou un type d’action est moralement bonne ou mauvaise. La relation entre (...) l’éthique normative et l’éthique appliquée est un peu comme la relation entre la science pure, comme la physique, et l’ingénierie (Timmons : 17). Le domaine le plus abstrait de l’éthique est la méta-ethique : elle ne s’occupe par de la question de savoir ce qui fait qu’une action est bonne ou mauvaise (éthique normative) et encore moins de la question de savoir si le suicide est moralement bon ou mauvais. Elle s’intéresse à trois types de questions. Les premières sont métaphysiques : qu’est-ce qu’une valeur, qu’une norme (sont-ce des propriétés naturelles comme la masse, des propriétés non naturelles ? Des choses qui n’existent pas ?) ? Existe-t-il des valeurs objectives ? Les secondes sont épistémologiques : comment connaissons-nous les valeurs et les normes ? Par la raison ? L’intuition ? Les émotions ? Dans la mesure où la méta-éthique semble être le domaine le plus abstrait de l’éthique, la prudence pédagogique voudrait qu’on l’étudie en dernier : commencer par un cas concret, puis remonter petit à petit vers des questions plus abstraites. Pour des raisons qui vous apparaîtront j’espère au fur et à mesure, j’ai choisi de commencer néanmoins par des questions qui relève de la méta-éthique. Nous aborderons l’éthique normative et l’éthique appliquée dans la deuxième partie du cours. (shrink)

If contemporary African political philosophy is going to develop substantially in fresh directions, it probably will not be enough, say, to rehash the old personhood debate between Kwame Gyekye and Ifeanyi Menkiti, or to nit-pick at Gyekye’s system, as much of the literature in the field has done. Instead, major advances are likely to emerge on the basis of new, principled interpretations of sub-Saharan moral thought. In recent work, I have fleshed out two types of moral theories that have a (...) clearly sub-Saharan basis, that differ from Gyekye’s moral perspective, and that also happen to constitute genuine rivals to dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism, Kantianism and contractualism. In catchwords, these African moral theories are constituted by ideals regarding community or friendliness, on the one hand, and vitality or liveliness, on the other. In this article I sketch these two under-explored ethical perspectives and then suggest several respects in which their implications for salient political controversies are novel and revealing. Sometimes the new African moral theories—and the community-based one in particular--entail different conclusions from Gyekye's position, while other times their conclusions are the same as Gyekye’s, but they provide different rationales for them that are more compelling than his. (shrink)

Perception is our primary means of accessing the external world. What is the nature of this core mental process? Although this question is at the center of scientific research on perception, it has also long been explored by philosophers, who ask fundamental questions about our capacity to perceive: Do our different senses represent the world in commensurable ways? How much of our environment can we be aware of at one time? Which aspects of perception are ‘objective’, and which ‘subjective’? What (...) properties count as perceptual in the first place? Although these parallel research programs typically proceed independently in contemporary scholarship, previous eras recognized more active collaboration and interaction across philosophical and scientific approaches to perception. Here, we review an emerging research focus that has begun to reunite these approaches, by putting several long-standing philosophical questions to empirical test. Unlike more general sources of philosophical inspiration, the work described here draws a direct line from a prominent philosophical conjecture or thought experiment about perception to a key test of that question in the laboratory—such that the relevant experimental work would not (and even could not) have proceeded as it did without the preceding philosophical discussion. Finally, we explore themes arising from these successful interactions, and point to further philosophical questions that might be amenable to empirical approaches. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy is notoriously based on the dichotomy between the phenomenal and the noumenal world. This dichotomy digs a rift across human nature by separating the animal and the rational parts of it, its heteronomous and autonomous components, duty and self-love. Human beings, for Kant, inhabit both worlds. Such a dychotomy, according to Sasha Mudd, gives rise to two forms of alienation: moral alienation (the estrangement of the heteronomous agent, motivated by happiness and inclinations, from a morality perceived as alien, (...) foreign, and hardly motivating) and practical alienation (the estrangement of the autonomous moral agent from her empirical and heteronomous dimension – her projects, desires, aspirations, inclinations, and so on). On Mudd’s account, Kant successfully escape the first kind of alienation through his doctrine of respect. Here I argue, contra Mudd, that there are at least two ways in which Kant leaves moral agents morally alienated, i.e., alienated from morality itself. (shrink)

In this chapter, we discuss a selection of current views of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). We focus on the different predictions they make, in particular with respect to the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) during visual experiences, which is an area of critical interest and some source of contention. Our discussion of these views focuses on the level of functional anatomy, rather than at the neuronal circuitry level. We take this approach because we currently understand more about experimental (...) evidence at this coarse level and because these results are appropriate for arbitrating between current theoretical frameworks. We discuss the Two-Visual-Systems Hypothesis (Milner & Goodale 1995; 2006), Local Recurrency (Lamme 2010; Lamme 2006), Higher Order (Lau 2008; Lau & Rosenthal 2011) and Global Workspace theories (Baars 1997; Baars 2005; Dehaene & Naccache 2001; Dehaene 2014). Despite the apparent stark differences between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing, available evidence suggests that their neural substrates must be largely shared. This indicates that the difference in neural activity between conscious and unconscious perceptual processing is likely to be subtle and highly specialized. We argue that current experimental evidence about the involvement of specific activity in prefrontal cortex supports the higher order neural theory of consciousness. In consequence, imaging techniques that focus only on marked differences between conscious and unconscious level of activity are likely to be insensitive to the relevant neural activity patterns that underlie conscious experiences. Finally, it follows from the evidence we discuss that the functional advantages of conscious over unconscious perceptual processing may be more limited than commonly thought. (shrink)

Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to model introspection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception to introspection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise ratio) which is, (...) to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modelling introspection after perception, iSDT can calibrate introspection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking about introspection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

To find the neural substrates of consciousness, researchers compare subjects’ neural activity when they are aware of stimuli against neural activity when they are not aware. Ideally, to guarantee that the neural substrates of consciousness—and nothing but the neural substrates of consciousness—are isolated, the only difference between these two contrast conditions should be conscious awareness. Nevertheless, in practice, it is quite challenging to eliminate confounds and irrelevant differences between conscious and unconscious conditions. In particular, there is an often-neglected confound that (...) is crucial to eliminate from neuroimaging studies: task performance. Unless subjects’ task performance is matched (and hence perceptual signal processing is matched), researchers risk finding the neural correlates of perception, rather than conscious perception. Here, we discuss the theoretical motivations for the performance matching framework and review empirical demonstrations of, and theoretical inferences derived from, obtaining differences in consciousness while controlling for task performance. We summarize signal detection theoretic modeling frameworks that explain how it is that we can derive performance-matched differences in consciousness without the effect being trivially driven by differences in criterion setting, and also provide principles for designing experimental paradigms that yield performance-matched differences in awareness. Finally, we address potential technical and theoretical issues that stem from matching performance across conditions of awareness, and we introduce the notion of “triangulation” for designing comprehensive experimental sets that can better reveal the neural substrates of consciousness. (shrink)

Consciousness and confidence seem intimately related. Accordingly, some researchers use confidence ratings as a measure of, or proxy for, consciousness. Rosenthal discusses the potential connections between the two, and rejects confidence as a valid measure of consciousness. He argues that there are better alternatives to get at conscious experiences such as direct subjective reports of awareness (i.e. subjects’ reports of perceiving something or of the degree of visibility of a stimulus). In this chapter, we offer a different perspective. Confidence ratings (...) in general, and metacognitive measures in particular, may offer important advantages over subjective ratings. The arguments we offer here are supported by empirical, practical and socio-strategic considerations. However, we do not suggest consciousness and confidence are interchangeable. We recognize the limitations of confidence ratings in some experimental designs and for some research questions. Nevertheless, we also address a potential conceptual link between consciousness and confidence that stems from Rosenthal’s very own work on mental quality space theory. (shrink)

John Searle challenges two main stances about the nature of visual experience: The Traditional View and Disjunctivism. He aims to remove the mistakes of these two stances and to present an alternative view which supports Direct Realism. The first part of this review presents the main theses and arguments of Searle's stance. In the second part, it is argued that Searle's analysis of Disjunctivism is not accurate enough.

El libro E-physicalism - A Physicalist Theory of PhenomenalConsciousness presenta una teoría en el área de la metafísica de laconciencia fenomenal. Está basada en las convicciones de que la experienciasubjetiva -en el sentido de Nagel - es un fenómeno real,y de que alguna variante del fisicalismo debe ser verdadera.

Kant repeatedly stresses that moral philosophy shall find completion in the shape of a system. The present chapter focuses on three main aspects that characterise his view of the need of a system of ethics, suggesting that Kant's view should be construed in contrast with the current assumptions on the role of a system in moral philosophy. First, I argue that, in Kant’s view, the system of ethics does not pursue the coherentist project of systematising moral beliefs. Systematicity in ethics (...) is, for him, about unfolding the obligations that are justified by the fundamental principle, according to a Pufendorfian paradigm widespread in the eighteenth century. Second, I show that, in contrast not only to current assumptions, but also to the Pufendorfian paradigm, Kant’s systematic treatment of ethics is neither a logically consistent arrangement of demands, nor a complete collection of ethical duties, but a system of ends that yields an open-ended system of duty types. Third, I suggest that in Kant’s view a systematic treatment of ethics is supposed to provide orientation to moral thinking through a broader perspective from which perplexing cases should be considered by emphasizing the holistic character of ethical demands and clarifying their connections. (shrink)

I argue that modal epistemology should pay more attention to questions about the structure and function of modal thought. We can treat these questions from synchronic and diachronic angles. From a synchronic perspective, I consider whether a general argument for the epistemic support of modal though can be made on the basis of modal thoughs’s indispensability for what Enoch and Schechter (2008) call rationally required epistemic projects. After formulating the argument, I defend it from various objections. I also examine the (...) possibility of considering the indispensability of modal thought in terms of its components. Finally, I argue that we also need to approach these issues from a diachronic perspective, and I sketch how to approach this task. (shrink)

Despite considerable attention to the need for systemic education for a new society, it is surprising to note how little research has actually been conducted in this area with transdisciplinary approach. Besides, there are many papers about new educational approaches but they are focused on a specific level, for example on higher education. Very little has been done in terms of a systemic and comprehensive approach capable of guiding human development from preschool to postgraduates studies-and beyond. This paper has two (...) purposes: (a) first, to articulate the theoretical framework of a new educational paradigm that responds to current needs of society and that integrates evolutionary perspectives on cultural and human development; (b) second, to suggest a research agenda that may be followed in the future to expand our knowledge base in the new educational paradigms area. (shrink)

In this paper moral philosophy of Mahrishi Valmiki discussed on the basis of his ideas in the Ramayana.

Kant is probably one of the most misunderstood philosophers in the history of Western thought. Some of the most well-known and pervasive objections to Kant’s practical philosophy often rest on considerable misunderstandings of his central theses or a poor and superficial reading of his work. A common misconception is that in Kant’s practical philosophy there is no place or role for human happiness. In Happiness in Kant’s Practical Philosophy: Morality, Indirect Duties, and Welfare Rights, Alice Pinheiro Walla dispels this misunderstanding (...) by elucidating Kant’s conception of happiness (understood in broadly hedonist terms) and showing that, for Kant, the pursuit of happiness plays an important role in our personal and collective lives. This means that, far from endorsing an ascetic ideal of the moral agent, as it is commonly thought, Kant’s system embraces an ideal of the human life in which there is significant space, and even a duty, to pursue pleasurable endeavours. Somehow surprisingly, in Pinheiro Walla’s reading, Kant’s ethics is arguably less demanding than standard interpretations of Aristotelian and Utilitarian ethical theories. (shrink)

First part of the translation into Spanish of David Lewis' "New Work for a Theory of Universals", corresponding to the introduction and the first two sections of the original paper. || Primera parte de la traducción al español del trabajo de David Lewis "New Work for a Theory of Universals", correspondiente a la introducción y las dos primeras secciones del artículo original. Artículo original publicado en: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 4, Dec. 1983, pp. 343-377.

Second part of the translation into Spanish of David Lewis' "New Work for a Theory of Universals", corresponding to the last sections of the original paper. || Segunda parte de la traducción al español del trabajo de David Lewis "New Work for a Theory of Universals", correspondiente a últimas secciones del artículo original. Artículo original publicado en: Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 4, Dec. 1983, pp. 343-377.

Stephenson (2022) has argued that Kant’s thesis that all transcendental truths are transcendentally a priori knowable leads to omniscience of all transcendental truths. His arguments depend on luminosity principles and closure principles for transcendental knowability. We will argue that one pair of a luminosity and a closure principle should not be used, because the closure principle is too strong, while the other pair of a luminosity and a closure principle should not be used, because the luminosity principle is too strong. (...) Stephenson’s argument also depends on a factivity principle for transcendental knowability, which we will argue to be false. (shrink)

A child arrives as a new world because in her and with her we feel that the whole world can start over. But that is not the only reason. A child also arrives as a new world because her arrival tells us what, being so simple, we had almost forgotten: that the world is not just old and unquestionable. The child doesn’t let us be indif-ferent; she breaks with conformity and arrives as hope, reeking of the unpredictable. Of questions. A (...) similar arrival to that of a child is that of certain childlike ideas, such as the idea offered by Matthew Lipman when he created “philosophy for children.” We cele-brate his childlike, daring, irreverent, inquiring character, commemorating his birth nearly 50 years ago. With this childlike idea, a new world began—or at least it be-came possible to start—in worlds which were already a little old and stuck in con-formity. When those in institutionalized philosophy and education heard about the audacity of welcoming children among their reputable interlocutors in dialogue and thought, they frowned and turned up their noses. Philosophy for children? How come? Childhood in philosophy? (shrink)

Moral philosophy continues to be enriched by an ongoing empirical turn,mainly through contributions from neuroscience, biology, and psychology. Thusfar, cultural anthropology has largely been missing. A recent and rapidly growing‘ethical turn’ within cultural anthropologynow explicitly and systematically studiesmorality. This research report aims to introduce to an audience in moral philosophyseveral notable works within the ethical turn. It does so by critically discussing theethical turn’s contributions to four topics: the definition of morality, the nature ofmoral change and progress, the truth of (...) moral relativism, and attempts to debunkmorality. The ethical turn uncovers a richer picture of moral phenomena on theintersubjective level, one akin to a virtue theoretic focus on moral character, withstriking similarities of moral phenomena across cultures. Perennial debates are notsettled but the ethical turn strengthens moral philosophy’s empirical turn and itrewards serious attention from philosophers. (shrink)

Examines the theories of Socrates, Kant, Dewey, Piaget, and others to explore the implications of Socrates' question "what is a virtuous man, and what is a virtuous school and society which educates virtuous men.".

Can experimental philosophy help us answer central questions about the nature of moral responsibility, such as the question of whether moral responsibility is compatible with determinism? Specifically, can folk judgments in line with a particular answer to that question provide support for that answer. Based on reasoning familiar from Condorcet’s Jury Theorem, such support could be had if individual judges track the truth of the matter independently and with some modest reliability: such reliability quickly aggregates as the number of judges (...) goes up. In this chapter, however, I argue, partly based on empirical evidence, that although non-specialist judgments might on average be more likely than not to get things right, their individual likelihoods fail to aggregate because they do not track truth with sufficient independence. (shrink)

It is well known the harmful effects that savage capitalism has been causing to the environment since its introduction in a sphere in which a different logic and approach to nature are the essential conditions for the maintenance of the ecosystem and its complex relations between humans and non-human organisms. The amazon rainforest is a portion of the planet in which for thousands of years its human dwellers have been interacting with nature that it is understood beyond its physical condition. (...) Thus, to what extent Amazonian’s approaches to nature could be considered as a moral philosophy through which the way of conceptualizing nature and its non-human denizens enhances the continuity of life and the intimate relations between entities? To answer this question, I will explore the cosmological system of the Shuar of the Ecuadorian Amazon with whom I lived for 5 months between July and November 2018, and thereby elucidate the spiritual relations that this society has with the metaphysical domain of nature. (shrink)

Despite being somewhat long in the tooth at the time, Aristotle, Hume and Kant were still dominating twentieth century moral philosophy. Much of the progress made in that century came from a detailed working through of each of their approaches by the expanding and increasingly professionalized corps of academic philosophers. And this progress can be measured not just by the quality and sophistication of moral philosophy at the end of that century, but also by the narrowing of some of the (...) gaps between Aristotelian, Humean and Kantian philosophers. (shrink)

Christian moral philosophy is a distinctive kind of moral philosophy owing to the special role it assigns to God in Christ. Much contemporary 'Christian ethics' focuses on semantic, modal, conceptual and epistemological issues. This may be helpful but it omits the distinctive focus of Christian moral philosophy: the human condition in a morally ordered universe and the redemptive work of jesus Christ as a response to that predicament. Christian moral philosophers should seek to remedy that neglect.

This paper investigates how an introductory philosophy course influences the moral and political development of undergraduate students in a Liberal Arts university in Central Asia. Within a context of rapid changes characteristic of transitional societies—reflected in the organization of higher education—philosophy provides students with the means to reason about moral and political values in a way that overcomes the old ideological tenets as well as contemporary reluctance to theoretical inquiry. Studying philosophy provides a remedy for deficiencies in both secondary and (...) higher education, by improving general reading and reasoning skills, that enable the development of moral reasoning. Furthermore, familiarity with major works of moral and political philosophy can help students comprehend the patterns of social change, as well as surmount the issue of unsatisfactory theoretical foundations for social science. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: 1. This paper argues that Epicurus had a notion of moral responsibility based on the agent’s causal responsibility, as opposed to the agent’s ability to act or choose otherwise; that Epicurus considered it a necessary condition for praising or blaming an agent for an action, that it was the agent and not something else that brought the action about. Thus, the central question of moral responsibility was whether the agent was the, or a, cause of the action, or whether (...) the agent was forced to act by something else. Actions could be attributed to agents because it is in their actions that the agents, qua moral beings, manifest themselves. 2. As a result, the question of moral development becomes all important. The paper collects and discusses the evidence for Epicurus views on moral development, i.e. (i) on how humans become moral beings and (ii) on how humans can become morally better. It becomes clear that Epicurus envisaged a complex web of hereditary and environmental factors to shape the moral aspect of a human being. 3. In line with Epicurus’ theory of moral responsibility and moral development, Epicurus ethics does not have the function of developing or justifying a moral system that allows for the effective allocation of praise and blame. Rather, for him the function of ethics – and in fact of the whole of philosophy – is to give everyone a chance to morally improve. (shrink)

Neuroscientific claims have a significant impact on traditional philosophy. This essay, focusing on the field of moral neuroscience, discusses how and why philosophy can contribute to neuroscientific progress. First, viewing the interactions between moral neuroscience and moral philosophy, it becomes clear that moral philosophy can and does contribute to moral neuroscience in two ways: as explanandum and as explanans. Next, it is shown that moral philosophy is well suited to contribute to moral neuroscience in both of these two ways in (...) the context of the problem of ecological validity. Philosophy can play the role of an agent for ecological validity, since traditional philosophy shapes and reflects part of our social reality. Finally, based on these arguments, I tentatively sketch how a Kantian account of moral incentive can play this role. (shrink)

People make moral judgments in response to actual or hypothetical situations. But should they ignore moral judgments made in some states of mind, such as when they are hesitant, frightened, or under the influence of a drug? John Rawls thinks that moral philosophers should ignore judgments made in such states, but I introduce a proposal according to which, if certain conditions are met, they should not. The proposal is loosely inspired by psychoanalysis.

L'internalisme motivationnel est la théorie selon laquelle il existe une connexion nécessaire entre les jugements moraux et la motivation. Dans ce chapitre, nous distinguons un certain nombre de ses variantes et écartons celles d’entre elles qui sont moins directement intéressantes pour les grands débats métaéthiques. Nous examinons ensuite trois arguments philosophiques qui échouent à établir ou à réfuter l'internalisme. Enfin, nous présentons quelques arguments empiriques, relevant respectivement de la psychologie, des neurosciences et de la philosophie expérimentale.

Does Hegel have anything to contribute to moral philosophy? If moral philosophy presupposes the soundness of what he calls the 'standpoint of morality [Moralität]' (PR §137), then Hegel's contribution is likely to be negative. As is well known, he argues that morality fails to provide us with substantive answers to questions about what is good or morally required and tends to gives us a distorted, subject-centred view of our practical lives; moral concerns are best addressed from the 'standpoint of ethical (...) life [Sittlichkeit]' (ibid.). Hegel's criticism of morality has had a decisive influence in the reception of his thought. By general acknowledgement, while his writings support a broadly neo-Aristotelian ethics of self-actualization, his views on moral philosophy are exhausted by his criticisms of Kant, whom he treats as paradigmatic exponent of the standpoint of morality. My aim in this essay is to correct this received view and show that Hegel offers a positive argument about the nature of moral willing. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct the birth, blossoming and decline of an eighteenth century program, namely “Moral Newtonianism”. I reconstruct the interaction, or co-existence, of different levels: positive theories, methodology, worldviews and trace the presence of scattered items of the various levels in the work of Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart. I highlight how Mirowski’s reconstruction of the interaction between physics and economics may be extended to the eighteenth century in an interesting way once the outdated reconstruction of (...) Adam Smith that has been adopted by Mirowski is updated. I show how general methodological ideas, such as the distinction between ultimate causes or essences and intermediate principles, that originated in a context where the issue was the interaction between natural science and theology, proved useful when transferred to social theory in encouraging a kind of “experimental” approach to social phenomena. I discuss finally the genesis of frozen metaphors such as equilibrium, circulation, and value, arguing that Canguilhem’s lesson – namely that scientific change is produced not only by similarity but also by opposition – may be applied also to the history of economic thought. I take as an example Adam Smith’s ‘discovery’ of social mechanisms vis-à-vis his sceptical mistrust of neo-Stoic and Platonic views of a world-order. (shrink)

Some of the most influential moral philosophers in the English-speaking world say or suggest that we should only pay attention to moral judgments made in certain states of mind, where these states exclude anxious states. In this paper, I argue that this position faces at least two major problems.

The new philosophy of superdeterminism is a specific approach to answering fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, and morality based on a single scientific fact about the universe, namely that cause and effect in physics are not real. Although the notion that cause and effect are not real has a long history in philosophy, recently a Swedish theoretical physicist, Dr. Johan Hansson published a physics proof that our universe is superdeterministic meaning a predetermined static block universe without cause and effect in (...) physics. A new philosophy of superdeterminism based on this scientific discovery that cause and effect are not real has many important implications for human beings, but three especially important implications are a disproof of libertarian free will, existentialism and moral evolution. Libertarian free will is impossible in the absence of cause and effect in physics. Existentialism is impossible in a predetermined universe. And one can infer that a Creator God endorsed objective Christian morality for all time disproving moral evolution. (shrink)

With fifty-four chapters charting the development of moral philosophy in the Western world, this volume examines the key thinkers and texts and their influence on the history of moral thought from the pre-Socratics to the present day. Topics including Epicureanism, humanism, Jewish and Arabic thought, perfectionism, pragmatism, idealism and intuitionism are all explored, as are figures including Aristotle, Boethius, Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Rawls, as well as numerous key ideas and schools of thought. Chapters (...) are written by leading experts in the field, drawing on the latest research to offer rigorous analysis of the canonical figures and movements of this branch of philosophy. The volume provides a comprehensive yet philosophically advanced resource for students and teachers alike as they approach, and refine their understanding of, the central issues in moral thought. (shrink)

This paper takes up the possibilities for thinking about human solidarity that can be found in Immanuel Kant’s writings on history. One way of approaching Kant’s philosophy of history is to focus on what would seem to be an antinomy in Kant’s account between the role of nature and the demands of freedom. Whereas nature, according to Kant, ruthlessly drives us into a state of perpetual war until finally, exhausted and bankrupt, we are forced into an international treaty for peace, (...) freedom, and the morality that flows from it, requires that each individual obey the supreme moral principle, namely, that we treat all people as ends in themselves and never merely as means; that we never, in other words, wage war. This antinomy is resolved once we see that, for Kant, a community of moral agents can only arise as a result of a perfect political constitution; a constitution that itself can only arise at the end of a history of war. (shrink)

This article addresses the inherently relational nature of musical agency, drawing upon interdisciplinary research. It argues that music does not exist in isolation but within social and emotional contexts shaped by a network of relationships among musicians. These interactions create a collaborative space that transcends mere technical execution, fostering a collective experience enriched by shared sensitivity and emotional engagement. Consequently, musical practice, whether compositional or performative, entails a moral responsibility, particularly challenging the perspectives of Levinas; Bauman; and Wilde, who traditionally (...) separated art from ethics. As outlined in Nielsen and Cobussen’s work “music contributes to a better understanding of one’s place within the world, and thus, to an ethical sensibility”, emphasizing how musical practice cultivates ethical awareness through its relational nature. Music is thus conceived as a moral endeavor, where care extends not only to the music itself but also to the individuals involved in its creation and performance. Moreover, this moral responsibility extends to future generations, as musical tradition is conceived as a temporal bridge linking the past, the present, and the future. The tradition is composed of individuals actively engaged in the practices that shape the tradition or traditions. Musicians bear an intergenerational responsibility toward those who will inherit and reinterpret current practices—a responsibility not grounded in direct reciprocity, but in what Randall describes as “conceptual ties”. The continuity of musical tradition and its aesthetic value depend on the care and responsibility each generation shows toward both the participants and the evolving cultural products of this process. Thus, the discussion elucidates the ethical dimensions of musical agency and practice, particularly in Western classical music, and highlights how our obligations to future generations are intrinsic to the practice itself, thereby contributing to broader debates on intergenerational care ethics. (shrink)

The hypothesis of this paper is that legal positivism depends on the non plausibility of strong moral cognitivism because of the non necessary connection thesis between law and morality that legal positivism is supposed to acknowledge. The paper concludes that only when based on strong moral cognitivism is it consistent to sustain the typical non-positivistic thesis of the necessary connection between law and morality. Habermas’s Philosophy of law is confronted with both positions.

The Taizhou school of philosophy, followers of Wang Yangming, places significant emphasis on the body, which has led to theoretical challenges concerning the potential dissipation of natural desires. Critics contend that while Taizhou philosophy acknowledges the natural state of human existence, it fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for the existence of evil and tends to overlook the crucial role of deliberate moral practice by idealizing the natural as morally perfect. Drawing on insights from embodied cognition, this article aims to (...) shed light on the nuanced perspectives of Taizhou moral philosophy and address common criticisms regarding its approach to evil and moral practice. I will explore Taizhou’s holistic understanding, which integrates mind and body, self and others, offering fresh insights into the interplay between deliberation and spontaneity within moral practices. As a comparative and interdisciplinary endeavor, this work seeks to bridge the divide between Eastern and Western philosophical traditions and between moral philosophy and empirical science. This article not only aims to enhance our understanding of Taizhou philosophy but also strives to illuminate broader implications for ethical behavior and moral reasoning in a diverse, global context. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers use the term 'intuition' for a variety of different phenomena. In this paper, I try to provide a kind of a roadmap of the debates, point to some confusions and problems, and give a brief sketch of an empirically respectable philosophical approach.

Evolutionary debunking arguments, whether defended by Street (2006), Joyce (2006), or others against moral realism, or by Plantinga (1993, 2011) and others against atheism, seek to determine the implications of the still-dominant worldview of naturalism. Examining them is thus a critical component of any defense of a theistic philosophy of nature. Recently, several authors have explored the connection between evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism (hence: EDAs) and Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalistic atheism (hence: EAAN). Typically, responses in this vein (...) have been critical of EDAs, arguing that they are in some way self-undermining. Different critics have argued that, in the course of defending the EAAN, the theist loses her best response to the probabilistic argument from evil for atheism. Here, I provide the first systematic comparison of all three arguments—EDAs, the EAAN, and the problem of evil—and suggest that the first charge succeeds while the second fails. (shrink)

In this history of the development of ideas of honor in Western philosophy, Peter Olsthoorn examines what honor is, how its meaning has changed, and whether it can still be of use. Political and moral philosophers from Cicero to John Stuart Mill thought that a sense of honor and concern for our reputation could help us to determine the proper thing to do, and just as important, provide us with the much-needed motive to do it. Today, outside of the military (...) and some other pockets of resistance, the notion of honor has become seriously out of date, while the term itself has almost disappeared from our moral language. Most of us think that people ought to do what is right based on a love for justice rather than from a concern with how we are perceived by others. Wide-ranging and accessible, the book explores the role of honor in not only philosophy but also literature and war to make the case that honor can still play an important role in contemporary life. (shrink)

Owen Ware here develops and defends a novel interpretation of Fichte’s moral philosophy as an ethics of wholeness. While virtually forgotten for most of the twentieth century, Fichte’s System of Ethics is now recognized by scholars as a masterpiece in the history of post-Kantian thought and a key text for understanding the work of later German idealist thinkers. This book provides a careful examination of the intellectual context in which Fichte’s moral philosophy evolved and of the specific arguments he offers (...) in response to Kant and his immediate successors. A distinctive feature of this study is a focus on the foundational concepts of Fichte’s ethics—freedom, morality, feeling, conscience, community—and their connection to his innovative but largely misunderstood theory of drives. By way of conclusion, the book shows that what appears to be two conflicting commitments in Fichte’s ethics—a commitment to the feelings of one's conscience and a commitment to engage in open dialogue with others—are two aspects of his theory of moral perfection. The result is a sharp understanding of Fichte's System of Ethics as offering a compelling resolution to the personal and interpersonal dimensions of moral life. (shrink)

La philosophie morale est traditionnellement divisée en trois sous-disciplines : l’éthique appliquée, qui, comme son nom l’indique, s’intéresse aux positions à adopter sur des sujets pratiques ; l’éthique normative, où s’opposent un ensemble de théories sur ce qui devrait être, sur ce qui est bon/mauvais, etc. ; et la méta-éthique, qui étudie des questions non morales, mais relatives à la morale 1 . Cette dernière définition peut paraître floue, mais c’est un flou que rend nécessaire l’hétérogénéité propre (...) à la discipline. En effet, celle-ci est elle-même divisée en plusieurs domaines : l’épistémologie morale, l’ontologie morale, la psychologie morale, la phénoménologie morale et la logique morale (l’analyse des concepts moraux). Il n’est pas impossible de croiser les domaines, à l’instar de David McNaughton qui oppose une théorie ontologique – le réalisme – à une théorie épistémologique – le non-cognitivisme. Le réalisme moral affirme l’existence de propriétés morales non réductibles à des propriétés non morales : un acte est condamnable si et seulement s’il possède, à côté de ses propriétés non morales (il s’agit d’un acte délibéré, prémédité, etc.), la propriété d’être condamnable. Et, quant à lui, le cognitivisme soutient qu’une opinion morale n’est rien de plus qu’un état cognitif, qu’une croyance. Ce que nie le non-cognitivisme. Ainsi, selon McNaughton, le principal argument contre le réalisme moral est non cognitiviste. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to demonstrate that moral responsibility theory produces, legitimates, and even magnifies the considerable social injustice that accrues to disabled people insofar as it implicitly and explicitly promotes a depoliticized ontology of disability that construes disability as a naturally disadvantageous personal characteristic or deleterious property of individuals rather than identifies it as an effect of power, an apparatus. In particular, I argue that the methodological tools of “analytic” philosophy that philosophers of moral responsibility theory employ to (...) establish the philosophical domain in which they engage have distinctly detrimental effects on disabled people. (shrink)

The received view of Kant’s moral philosophy is that it precludes all moral luck. But I offer a plausible interpretation according to which Kant embraces moral luck in circumstance and constitution. I interpret the unconditioned nature of transcendental freedom as a person’s ability to do the right thing no matter how she is inclined by her circumstantial and constitutive luck. I argue that various passages about degrees of difficulty relating to circumstantial and constitutive luck provide a reason to accept a (...) pro-moral luck interpretation of Kant. (shrink)