Kant uses ‘wish’ as a technical term to denote a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills an object that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. Or in more Kantian garb: it is an instance of the faculty of desire’s (or will’s) failing insofar as a desire (representation) cannot be the cause of the realization of its corresponding object in reality. As a result, Kant originally maintained it to be antithetical to morality, which (...) deals with ‘ought implies can’. However, Kant’s notion of wish is not static. On the contrary, I argue in this article that Kant re-evaluated the capacity to wish as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle but decisive shift evident in two versions of a footnote from the *Critique of the Power of Judgement* (KU). (shrink)

This paper is about two requirements on wish reports whose interaction motivates a novel semantics for these ascriptions. The first requirement concerns the ambiguities that arise when determiner phrases, such as definite descriptions, interact with ‘wish’. More specifically, several theorists have recently argued that attitude ascriptions featuring counterfactual attitude verbs license interpretations on which the determiner phrase is interpreted relative to the subject’s beliefs. The second requirement involves the fact that desire reports in general require decision-theoretic notions for (...) their analysis. The current study is motivated by the fact that no existing account captures both of these aspects of wishing. I develop a semantics for wish reports that makes available belief-relative readings but also allows decision-theoretic notions to play a role in shaping the truth conditions of these ascriptions. The general idea is that we can analyze wishing in terms of a two-dimensional notion of expected utility. (shrink)

This paper makes the case that when wishful thinking ill-founds belief, the belief depends on the desire in ways can be recapitulated at the level of perceptual experience. The relevant kinds of desires include motivations, hopes, preferences, and goals. I distinguish between two modes of dependence of belief on desire in wishful thinking: selective or inquiry-related, and responsive or evidence-related. I offers a theory of basing on which beliefs are badly-based on desires, due to patterns of dependence that can found (...) in the relationship between experiences and desires as well. This conclusion brings us a large part of the way to the conclusion that like beliefs, experiences can be ill-founded by depending on a desire. (shrink)

The wishful thinking problem purported to be a new problem for pure non-cognitivist expressivist views in metaethics in addition to the similar, yet distinct, Frege-Geach problem. After a smattering of initial responses, discussion of the problem has faded. One might think this is because the responses were fatal, and the problem is not really a problem. I do not think so. I aim to re-start discussion of the wishful thinking problem. I do so by recasting it in terms of the (...) distinction between propositional and doxastic justification. Doing so is instructive, for it shows some of the initial, prominent responses to the problem fail. The problem is thus not as dead as one might otherwise think. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of external goods in Nicomachean Ethics I 8-12 is often thought to amend his narrow claim that happiness is virtuous activity. I argue, to the contrary, that on Aristotle's account, external goods are necessary for happiness only because they are necessary for virtuous activity. My case innovates in three main respects: I offer a new map of EN I 8-12; I identify two mechanisms to explain why virtuous activity requires external goods, including a psychological need for external goods; (...) and I show the relevance of Aristotle's distinction between wishing and choosing. On the view I attribute to Aristotle, our capacity to choose virtuously requires, first, that we wish for external goods (because virtue requires the right attitudes of evaluation) and, second, that these wishes are generally fulfilled (because the social consequences and psychological pain of unfulfilled wishes undermine our opportunity to act virtuously and to take pleasure in acting virtuously). I close with discussion of how Aristotelians should defend this approach. (shrink)

In Aristotle’s moral psychology, deliberation (βούλευσις) is a very important concept that bridges the agent’s desire and action. However, his theory of what kind of desire is connected to deliberation creates puzzle for the reader: on the one hand, he repeatedly emphasizes that wish (βούλησις) sets the end for the agent, and deliberation finds the means for the agent to achieve the end of the action, and on the other hand, his moral psychology suggests that there are three kinds (...) of desires, namely, wish, spiritedness (θυμός), and appetite (ἐπιθυμία), and that, according to this division, all three kinds of desires can set the end of the action for deliberation. The traditional way of resolving this puzzle is to abandon wish as the only kind of desire that sets the end of deliberation and action, and to argue that at least appetite can also set the end of deliberation and action for the agent. The key rationale is that the akratic fails to achieve the object of her wish, but instead achieves the object of their appetite, and thus appetite sets the ends for their deliberation and actions. In addition, although the intemperate achieves the object of her wish, she also achieves the object of her appetite. This article argues against this traditional interpretation. Instead, I defend the view that, first, the end of all actions is set by the wish of the agent, and, second, the starting point of every act of deliberation is the end of the action set by the wish. On the basis of this interpretation, I also explain why the intemperate and the akratic agents initiate their deliberation with the end set by the wish. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to lay the groundwork for extending the idea of transparent introspection to wishes. First, I elucidate the notion of transparent introspection and highlight its advantages over rival accounts of self-knowledge. Then I pose several problems that seem to obstruct the extension of transparent introspection to wishes. In order to overcome these problems, I call into question the standard propositional attitude analysis of non-doxastic attitudes. My considerations lead to a non-orthodox account of attitudes in general (...) and wishes in particular in light of which the problems presented in Sect. 2 disappear. (shrink)

In this article we explore the underpinnings of what we view as a recent "backlash" in English law, a judicial reaction against considering children's and young people's expressions of their own feelings about treatment as their "true" wishes. We use this case law as a springboard to conceptual discussion, rooted in (a) empirical psychological work on child development and (b) three key philosophical ideas: rationality, autonomy and identity. Using these three concepts, we explore different understandings of our central theme, true (...) wishes. These different conceptual interpretations, we argue, help to elucidate important clinical questions in the area of children's informed consent to treatment. For example, how much should a child's own wishes count in making medical decisions? Does it make a difference if the child or young person is undergoing psychiatric treatment?—if in some sense her wishes are abnormal, not "true" expressions of what she really wants? If the child's wishes do not count, why not? If they do matter but count for less, how much less? We conclude by advocating functional tests of a young person's true wishes, applicable on a case-by-case basis, rather than a black-and-white distinction between "incompetent" children and "competent" adults. (shrink)

This essay accomplishes two goals. First, contra accepted interpretations, I reveal that the early Husserl executed valuable and extensive investigations of wishes—specifically in manuscripts from _Studies concerning the Structures of Consciousness_. In these manuscripts, Husserl examines two ‘kinds’ of wishes. He describes wish _drives_ as feelings of lack. He also dissects wish _intentions_ to uncover previously obscured partial acts, including nullifying consciousness, an existentially oriented act, and a preferring. Second, I reveal how these insights from _Studies_ partially prefigure (...) Husserl’s mature genetic phenomenology of drives and wish intentions. The mature Husserl develops his previous observation, that _drives_ are experiences of lack, by describing these drives as having two moments: impulse and movement. Husserl also comes to new insights about wish acts, when he juxtaposes these intentions—as pure feelings that have no power to reach a telos—to drives, which he now conceives of as volitional doings. (shrink)

Dilip Ninan has raised a puzzle for centered world accounts of de re attitude reports extended to accommodate what he calls “counterfactual attitudes.” As a solution, Ninan introduces multiple centers to the standard centered world framework, resulting in a more robust semantics for de re attitude reports. However, while the so-called multi-centered world proposal solves Ninan’s counterfactual puzzle, this additional machinery is not without problems. In Section 1, I present the centered world account of attitude reports, followed by the extension (...) to counterfactual attitudes which Ninan targets with his puzzle. In Section 2, I pose the counterfactual puzzle and present Ninan’s multi-centered world solution, emphasizing similarities and differences between multi-centered and centered world accounts of attitude reports. In Section 3, I argue the counterfactual attitude wishing falls under the purview of the multi-centered proposal, but that the proposal generates false predictions for wish reports concerning unsatisfiable content. I canvass responses, ultimately concluding Ninan’s proposal requires substantial revisions. (shrink)

This paper examines the surprisingly central role of sympathetic love within Margaret Cavendish’s philosophy. It shows that such love fulfils a range of metaphysical functions, and highlight an important shift in Cavendish’s account vis-a-vis earlier conceptions: sympathetic love is no longer given an emanative or mechanistic explanation, but is naturalized as an active emotion. It furthers investigate to what extent Cavendish’s account reveals a rift between the realm of nature and the realm of human sociability, and whether this rift really (...) prompts an inward turn, as some interpreters have suggested. (shrink)

Many atheists argue that because gratuitous evil exists, God (probably) doesn’t. But doesn’t this commit atheists to wishing that God did exist, and to the pro-theist view that the world would have been better had God existed? This doesn’t follow. I argue that if all that evil still remains but is just no longer gratuitous, then, from an atheist perspective, that wouldn’t have been better. And while a counterfactual from which that evil is literally absent would have been impersonally better, (...) it wouldn’t have been better for anyone, not even for those who suffered such evils. (shrink)

David Enoch recently defended the idea that there are valid inferences of the form ‘it would be good if p, therefore, p’. I argue that Enoch's proposal allows us to infer the absurd conclusion that ours is the best of all possible worlds.

Expressivists famously have important and difficult problems with semantics and logic. Their difficulties providing an adequate account of the semantics of material conditionals involving moral terms, and explaining why they have the right semantic and logical properties – for example, why they validate modus ponens – have received a great deal of attention. Cian Dorr [2002] points out that their problems do not stop here, but also extend to epistemology. The problem he poses for expressivists is the problem of wishful (...) thinking. David Enoch [2003] has claimed that expressivists can avoid wishful thinking, and offered a fairly detailed account of how. In this paper I explain the details of Enoch’s account, and why his reasoning fails in several different places. (shrink)

It is argued that wishful thinking is an informal logical fallacy and is distinguished from self-deception and delusion. Wishful thinking is unique in that a human desire is the starting point, which remains unfulfilled because of insufficient or no evidence or ignorance, despite the agent’s beliefs. It contrasts with self-deception, a more serious mental state in which the agent hides or denies the truth from himself, regardless of whether it is desired. Wishful thinking is a logical fallacy, depending on the (...) agent’s genuine beliefs as an epistemic dilemma or merely a harmless fantasy. pp. 30–42. (shrink)

(2002). Phantasy and Wish: A Proper Function Account for Human A-Rational Primary Process Mediated Mentation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 1-16.

The wishes of registered organ donors are regularly set aside when family members object to donation. This genuine overruling of the wishes of the deceased raises difficult ethical questions. A successful argument for providing the family with a veto must (a) provide reason to disregard the wishes of the dead, and (b) establish why the family should be allowed to decide. One branch of justification seeks to reconcile the family veto with important ideas about respecting property rights, preserving autonomy, and (...) preventing harm. These arguments are ultimately unsuccessful. Another branch of arguments is consequentialist, pointing out the negative consequences of removing the veto. Whether construed as concerning family distress or as a potential drop in the organs available, these arguments are unsuccessful; the first fails to recognize the tremendous distress associated with waiting for an organ, while the second has little supporting evidence. A final section considers and rejects whether combining some of the arguments just examined could justify the family veto. We should thus remove the family veto in organ donation. (shrink)

Business ethics is often understood as a variety of professional ethics, and thus distinct from ordinary morality in an important way. This article seeks to challenge two ways of defending this claim: first, from the nature of business practice, and second, from the contribution of business. The former argument fails because it undermines our ability to rule out a professional-ethics approach to a number of disreputable practices. The latter argument fails because the contribution of business is extrinsic to business in (...) a way that distinguishes from the established professions. The article ultimately suggests we adopt a more aspirational approach to business ethics, which retains an appeal even in the face of charges of anti-capitalist irrelevance. (shrink)

Laplacean Determinism (his so-called demon argument) is the thesis that every event that transpires in a closed universe is a physical event caused (i.e., determined) in full by some earlier event in accord with laws that govern their behavior. On this view, it is possible, in principle, to make perfect predictions of the state of the universe at any time Tn on the basis of complete knowledge of the state of the universe at time T1. Thus, if identity theory, epiphenomenalism (...) or any other instantiation of Laplacean Determinism is correct, mental events such as free will, intention and other forms of mental agency are tricks of the mind, misleading us into believing our volitional concerns have traction in a world ruled entirely by physical circumstance. Not surprisingly, advocates of free will and related acts of human volition have engaged in spirited debate with adherents to Laplacean orthodoxy, the results of which have been far from conclusive. Rather than join these deliberations, I wholly embrace the demon argument and then ask “what are the consequences of this allegiance?” As I hope to show, acceptance of this argument commits one to a belief in the existence of human precognition. This, I suggest, is a consequence that does not fit comfortably within a contemporary scientific worldview. (shrink)

The most contentious tenet of Husserl's phenomenology of feelings is his conclusion that there is an analogy between axiological reason and theoretical reason. Simply, Husserl asserts that the axiological validation of feelings is analogical to the theoretical validation of judgments. While the scholarship has debated the merits of Husserl's analogy over the last 120 years, this paper presents a new accurate interpretation, because it is the first to highlight how Husserl develops this analogy by most often comparing the fulfillment of (...) judgments to the fulfillment of wish feeling intentions. Specifically, I examine how Husserl analogizes wish fulfillment to theoretical fulfillment at different times; in the 1901 Logical Investigations, in his 1908 Lectures on Ethics, and in 1910 manuscripts from Studien zur Struktur des Bewusstseins. In light of this original interpretation, I conclude by arguing – contra popular readings – that Husserl does not over‐intellectualize feelings and their validation. (shrink)

What is W. V. O. Quine’s relationship to classical pragmatism? Although he resists the comparison to William James in particular, commentators have seen an affinity between his “web of belief” model of theory confirmation and James’s claim that our beliefs form a “stock” that faces new experience as a corporate body. I argue that the similarity is only superficial. James thinks our web of beliefs should be responsive not just to perceptual but also to emotional experiences in some cases; Quine (...) denies this. I motivate James’s controversial view by appealing to an episode in the history of medicine when a researcher self-experimented by swallowing a vial of bacteria that at the time had not been studied in much detail. The researcher’s commitment to his own as-yet untested hypothesis was based in part on emotional considerations. Finally, I argue that Quine’s insistence that emotions can never be relevant to adjusting our web of belief reflects a tacit holdover of one of logical positivism’s crucially anti-pragmatist commitments—that philosophy of science should focus exclusively on the context of justification, not the context of discovery. James’s emphasis on discovery as a (perhaps the) crucial locus for epistemological inquiry is characteristic of pragmatism in general. Since Quinean epistemology is always an epistemology of justification, he is not happily viewed as a member of the pragmatist tradition. (shrink)

Is the wish to be biologically related to your children legitimate? Here, I respond to an argument in support of a negative answer to this question according to which a preference towards having children one is biologically related to is analogous to a preference towards associating with members of one’s own race. I reject this analogy, mainly on the grounds that only the latter constitutes discrimination; still, I conclude that indeed a preference towards children one is biologically related to (...) is morally illegitimate because, in the context of parental love, biological considerations are normatively irrelevant. (shrink)

Are the wishes of the dead more important than the needs of the living? This question is prompted by consideration of the Hershey Trust Company, a perpetual charitable trust that not only owns and operates the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania, but also owns a controlling interest in various Hershey-related for-profit entities. This unusual arrangement, and the conditions under which it was formed, have produced a situation in which a small, private boarding school for low-income students has an endowment of (...) $12 billion (in addition to its other corporate and real estate interests). The trust has been operating according to its founder’s wishes for decades, but some have wondered whether its resources could be put to better use for more urgent needs. This case will invite students to consider the question of how we should weigh the needs of the living against the wishes of the dead. (shrink)

Trans rights advocacy is a social justice movement that is transforming language practices relating to gender. Research has highlighted the fact that language which constructs gender as binary harms trans people, and some trans studies researchers have developed guidelines for honouring trans people’s names and pronouns. The language of academic writing is an area of discussion where questions of trans rights and trans experiences have not yet been addressed. This paper draws on two data sources to explore the citation experiences (...) and practices of trans scholars and activists: a web-based archive of writers’ perspectives built between 2015 and 2016; and a corpus-based study of 14 research articles published in TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Our analysis highlights the sensitivity that is required of colleagues who work with transgender authors’ writing, furthering our understanding of citation as a collaborative and potentially intimate and caring practice. Practices of referring to work by trans scholars pose ethical questions about the social relations expressed in citation in general, enabling applied language scholars to develop a new and different awareness of the sociality of citation. (shrink)

The conventional wisdom about advance care planning holds that the normative force of my prior wishes is simply that they are mine. It is their connection to me that matters. This paper challenges conventional thinking. I propose that the normative force of prior wishes does not depend exclusively on personal identity. Instead, it sometimes depends on a special relationship that exists between a prior, capacitated person and a now incapacitated person. I consider what normative guidance governs persons who stand in (...) a special relationship, and contrast these with the standard model of respect for autonomy. My conclusion is that advance care planning for individuals who have lost decision-making capacity should incorporate the virtues of prudence and integrity, even when one and the same person ceases to exist, and respect for personal autonomy is no longer relevant. (shrink)

Chapter 1 of the Philosophy of Happiness book by Martin Janello. Please refer to the Table of Contents for its contextual order. An audio version of this and all other sections of the book, an entire on-line review copy, and a host of other pertinent materials are available without charge at the referenced website.

"Does torture work?" is a factual rather than ethical or legal question. But legal and ethical discussions of torture should be informed by knowledge of the answer to the factual question of the reliability of torture as an interrogation technique. The question as to whether torture works should be asked before that of its legal admissibility—if it is not useful to interrogators, there is no point considering its legality in court.

The concept of Substantial motion (حركت جوهرى) is fundamentally flawed and severely muddled. Aristotle and Mulla Sadra’s conception of motion, substance (جوهر) and substantial form صورت نوعيه)) were all based on a severe misunderstanding of nature as later was established by the scientists and philosophers that came after them. Here, by recalling the established facts of modern science, particularly the universally accepted scientific fact that, properties of objects are reducible to the motion of their electrons and there’s no such thing (...) as ‘substantial form’ much less substance, the author puts an end to a 400-year-old glorious error called ‘substantial motion’. Naturally any attempt to reconcile the paradigms of modern physics with Aristotle/Sadra paradigms of form/matter and substance/accidents, and to try to draw parallel between the two and revive their philosophy would be an exercise in futility. (shrink)

Concerns about emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases have given a new lease of life to quarantinist measures: a series of time-honoured techniques for controlling the spread of infectious diseases through breaking the chain of human contagion. Since such measures typically infringe individual rights or privacy their use is subject to legal regulations and gives rise to ethical and political worries and suspicions. Yet in some circumstances they can be very effective. After considering some case studies that show how epidemics are (...) unique, fluid and affected by a multitude of contingent factors, it is argued that the legal and ethical guidelines may not always be the best approach to discipline the use of quarantinist measures. An alternative model based on ex-post political accountability for reasonableness is proposed. This model restores the centrality of political decision and expert judgement in situations characterized by high risk, uncertainty and contingency. It is argued that such alternative model affords quicker and more flexible responses to serious outbreaks of infections, while providing adequate protection against abuses. (shrink)

SummaryHolm Tetens develops in his book „Gott denken. Ein Versuch über rationale Theologie“ theoretical and practical arguments against a naturalistic and in favour of a theistic understanding of reality. In my paper I focus on Teten’s claim that we are rationally justified to hope for the truth of classical theism. I distinguish between rationally justified and unjustified forms of hope and argue that we are rationally justified to hope for the redemption of reality as promised by classical theism. However, this (...) hope has a weaker basis of justification than Tetens seems to assume because serious objections to classical theism ought to be taken into consideration as well. (shrink)

In his essay "Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community," Edward W. Said throws down a gage to literary theorists and challenges them to break out of disciplinary ghettos, "to reopen the blocked social processes ceding objective representations (hence power) of the world to a small coterie of experts and their clients, to consider that the audience for literacy is not a closed circle of three thousand professional critics but the community of human beings living in society . . . ."' To (...) the literary critic he admonishes: "When you discuss Keats or Shakespeare or Dickens, you may touch on political subjects, of course, but it is assumed that the skills traditionally associated with modern literary criticism . . . are there to be applied to literary texts, not, for instance, to a government document . . . . The intellectual toll this has taken in the work of the most explicitly political of recent critics . . . is very high." Should lawyers not match Said's gage by throwing down one of their own? If literary criticism should be socially engaged, should the social practice of law not be literate? If so, to what end? (shrink)

This paper explores the socio-epistemic practice of shopping for experts. I argue that expert shopping is particularly likely to occur on what Thi Nguyen calls cognitive islands. To support my argument, I focus on macroeconomics. First, I make a prima-facie case for thinking that macroeconomics is a cognitive island. Then, I argue that ordinary people are particularly likely to engage in expert shopping when it comes to macroeconomic matters. In particular, I distinguish between two kinds of expert shopping, which I (...) call cynical and wishful, and introduce the notion of assisted expert shopping, which occurs when people or organizations shop for experts on behalf of other people. I argue that assisted expert shopping can sometime result in what I call a propagandistic use of expertise. Finally, I critically examine some possible reasons for optimism and find them wanting. I conclude by suggesting that that much of what I said about shopping for macroeconomic experts might also apply mutatis mutandis to other policy-relevant domains of expertise. (shrink)

Perceptual dogmatism holds that if it perceptually seems to S that P, then S thereby has prima facie perceptual justification for P. But suppose Wishful Willy's desire for gold cognitively penetrates his perceptual experience and makes it seem to him that the yellow object is a gold nugget. Intuitively, his desire-penetrated seeming can't provide him with prima facie justification for thinking that the object is gold. If this intuitive response is correct, dogmatists have a problem. But if dogmatists have a (...) problem, you do too (well, most of you anyway). Reliabilists have denounced dogmatism's cognitive penetration problems, but they have problems with cognitive penetration that are even worse. (shrink)

In this essay we argue for the Janus-faced nature of hope. We show that attempts to sanitise the concept of hope either by separating it conceptually from other phenomena such as wishful thinking, or, more generally, by seeking to minimise the negative aspects of hope, do not help us to understand the nature of hope and its functions as regards religion. Drawing on functional accounts of religion from Clifford Geertz and Tamas Pataki, who both—in their different ways—see the function of (...) religion in terms of its capacity to satisfy deep psychological needs, we demonstrate that religion uniquely positions itself with regard to hope’s two faces, simultaneously exploiting positive and negative aspects of hope. (shrink)

The term “performative” is used in at least two different senses. In the first sense, performatives are generatives, i.e. expressions by the use of which one creates new deontic states of affairs on the ground of extralinguistic conventions. In the second sense, performatives are operatives, i.e. expressions which contain verbal predicates and state their own utterances. In the article, both these types of expressions are compared to the class of imperatives which are characterized as expressions of the form “Let x (...) see to it that p” and typically express wishes. It is claimed that (1) only these imperatives are generatives which are uttered by deontic authorities, (2) no imperative is an imperative sensu stricto; (3) imperative operatives are used instead of “pure” imperatives in order to emphasize the force of resolution. (shrink)

I wish to draw attention to a connection between current changes in the concept of mind and cultural trends that disfavor the cultivation of conscious experience. There is a strain in contemporary philosophy and science that questions the very existence of consciousness. At the same time, trends in our culture, accelerated lately by technological developments, undermine the incentives and space to attend to conscious awareness. A view of the mind that denies the existence of consciousness leads us further away (...) from engagement with consciousness at a time when our ability for such engagement has already been seriously undermined by the digitalization of our lives, social media, and AI. At the same time, these technological changes might make us more receptive to the corrosive view that we lack consciousness. (shrink)

There are at least three basic phenomena that philosophers traditionally classify as paradigm cases of irrationality. In the first two cases, wishful thinking and self-deception, a person wants something to be true and therefore ignores certain relevant facts about the situation, making it appear to herself that it is, in fact, true. The third case, weakness of will, involves a person undertaking a certain action, despite taking herself to have an all-things-considered better reason not to do so. While I think (...) that Stephen Colbert's notion of "truthiness" might be able to fit the mold of each of these three kinds of irrationality, it applies most directly to cases of wishful thinking and self-deception — and it’s these two types of irrationality that I discuss extensively in this paper. As we will see, there are some troubling philosophical problems that arise regarding phenomena like self-deception. But we can use the concept of truthiness to show how these “paradoxes of irrationality” may be resolved without denying the fundamental irrationality of truthiness itself. -/- An earlier version of this paper ("Truthiness, Self-Deception, and Intuitive Knowledge") appeared in "The Daily Show and Philosophy" (2007). (shrink)

I wish first to motivate very briefly two points about the kind of context sensitive semantics needed for attitude reports, namely that reports are about referents and about mental representations; then I will compare two proposals for treating the attitudes, both of which capture the two points in question.

I wish to defend the claim that given the content and structure of any moral theory we are likely to find palatable, there is no way of uniquely breaking down that theory into either consequentialist or deontological elements. Indeed, once we examine the actual structure of any such theory more closely, we see that it can be classified in either way arbitrarily. Hence if we ignore the metaethical pronouncements often made by adherents of the consequentialist-deontological distinction, we are quickly (...) led to the conclusion that this distinction contributes nothing of consequence to an understanding of moral theory. I will try to show that there are basically two reasons for this. First, what we mean by the terms endemic to the consequentialist-deontological distinction have no unique references to particular states of affairs in actual cases of moral decision making. Hence we may justify any such concrete moral decision by reference to typically consequentialist or deontological reasoning indifferently. Second, scrutiny of actual and viable moral theories reveals a much finer-grained structure than the consequentialist-deontological taxonomy can capture. And it is this structure, rather than simple attention to consequences or principles, that determines practical moral decision making. We would thus do better to develop the richer vocabulary of causes and constituents, goals and effects, states and events (mental, social, or physical). So in the end, the consequentialist-deontological distinction is irrelevant at the normative level of actual moral reasoning, whereas at the metaethical level it crudely schematizes two opposing types of dummy theory, neither of which is convincing, upon reflection, to any practicing moral philosopher. (shrink)

"We wish this volume to be a sure companion to the study of free will, broadly construed to include action theory, moral and legal responsibility, and cohort studies feathering off into adjacent fields in the liberal arts and sciences. In addition to general coverage of the discipline, this volume attempts a more challenging and complementary accompaniment to many familiar narratives about free will. In order to map out some directions such accompaniment will take, in this introduction we anchor the (...) thirty contributions to this volume in some common history from which they arise, and attempt to indicate where future work in free will and moral responsibility will–and has already begun to–depart from that history." -Excerpt from Introduction. ... ... To read full introduction, (1) download attached file or (2) follow wiley_dot_com link below, click "Read An Excerpt", then click :Excerpt 3:(pdf)". (shrink)

I wish to propose a new doctrine called epistemological pacifism. According to the doctrine, our objective knowledge concerning hard facts about a given war and its context is far too poor to justify entering that war. Our best and most informative accounts of any pre-war situation are value-laden; the same is true of counterfactual claims about any event during, or after, war. Here we have three new types of what has been discussed under the label of fact/value entanglement. Realizing (...) this helps us understand why pacifists and their opponents never agree about so-called facts. Both parties bring to bear different values in their descriptions. Although this is legitimate for both sides, the values of the pacifist are more attractive than those of the bellicist. The recent war in Mali is a case in point, as I’ll sketch at the end of the paper. (shrink)

I wish to carry out a philosophical inquiry into the present day intercultural public spheres. The thesis I endeavour to support is that the achievement of inclusive public spheres largely depends on one’s willingness and capacity to foster the “appreciation of diversities” by first, enhancing policies and forms of cooperation between the citizens’ emotional and motivational resources, and then enhancing their cognitive competences. More specifically, my proposal is to understand such an effort from the viewpoint of post-Weberian responsibility, that (...) is of an ethics and politics that overcome the traditional divisions between theory and practice, cognition and emotion, “Verantwortung” and “Gesinnung” , and therefore succeed in enhancing the citizens’ awareness and attitudes as – in Habermas’ words – “democratic co-legislators”. The case study of Matthew Lipman’s “Philosophy for Children/Community” succeeds precisely in highlighting these results. (shrink)

Leibniz wished that his Theodicy (1710) would have as great and as wide an impact as possible, and to further this end we find him in his correspondence with Caroline often expressing his desire that the book be translated into English. Despite his wishes, and Caroline’s efforts, this was not to happen in his lifetime (indeed, it did not happen until 1951, almost 250 years after Leibniz’s death). But even though the Theodicy did not make quite the impact in England (...) that Leibniz had hoped it would, it did draw some attention from the English intelligentsia. In this paper I shall focus on two responses to the Theodicy that were made in England in the years immediately following its publication. First, I shall consider the response of Michel de la Roche and his efforts to promote the book to an English audience in 1711 (efforts which only came to Leibniz’s attention much later, in 1713). De la Roche’s response was broadly positive, though his admiration for the Theodicy was tempered by his belief that Leibniz had struggled – unsuccessfully – to reconcile free will with divine foreknowledge. Second, I shall consider the largely negative response of George Smalridge, the Bishop of Bristol, who delivered his verdict on the book in a letter to Sophie written in 1714. Leibniz subsequently wrote a point-by-point rebuttal of (most of) Smalridge’s criticisms in a letter to Caroline, conceding only one very minor point to the Bishop. As we shall see, some of the points of substance raised by de la Roche and Smalridge have loomed over the Theodicy ever since. (shrink)

Suppose we wish to decide which of a pair of actions has better consequences in a case in which both actions result in infinite utility. Peter Vallentyne and others have proposed that one action has better consequences than a second if there is a time after which the cumulative utility of the first action always outstrips the cumulative utility of the second. I argue against this principle, in particular I show how cases may arise in which up to any (...) point of time action a1 produces more utility than action a2, yet for each individual involved a2 produces more utility. (shrink)

Those who wish to defend the role of aesthetic values in science face a dilemma: Either aesthetic language is used metaphorically for what are ultimately epistemic features, or aesthetic language is used literally but it is difficult to see the importance of such values in science. I introduce a new account that gets around this problem by looking to an overlooked source of aesthetic value in science: the relation between form and content. I argue that a fit between the (...) content of a thought experiment, and the way in which that content is formulated, can have important epistemic pay offs through contributing to scientific understanding. (shrink)

As someone who wishes Escape from Leviathan (EfL) to succeed, I am grateful for a review with such high praise from a well-known classical liberal. As a critical rationalist who also wishes to learn from his mistakes, I am also grateful for Norman Barry’s criticisms. The only way that I can hope to try to repay these and appreciate their full force is by doing my best to reply to them.

In this paper, I wish to defend Aristotle’s naturalness thesis. First, I argue against the claim that the city fails to meet the criteria (e.g. separability, continuity, etc.) Aristotle sets for substantiality in the Metaphysics. Second, I examine the problem of the Principle of Transitivity of End in Aristotle’s telic argument for the naturalness of the city. I argue that the city exists for its own end. Finally, I discuss the problem of the legislator in the genesis of the (...) city. I argue that the legislator is only responsible for the actualization of the potential form that Nature has set forward. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to examine our imagination of the unity of the earth and the process of globalization by contrasting it with the early origins of mapping and measuring the globe. I will pay particular attention to the work of Abū Rayḥān Al-Bīrūnī. I will demonstrate that the assumptions which allowed for Al-Bīrūnī’s advances in the measurement of the globe were based upon a certain understanding of the relationship of place within the sacred order of the cosmos (...) and the role of reason in this connection. This carries over to his anthropological works which considers the history of other religions and cultures. It shows an approach where objectivity in scientific investigation can stand alongside a diversity of religious faiths or visions. I wish to use these insights to consider the positions of such Western writers on the philosophy of globe-formation, such as Carl Schmitt and especially Peter Sloterdijk. Sloterdijk understands the development of our imagination of the globe as a singular history which was achieved primarily through conquest. Comparing these thinkers is important because our understanding of geopolitics and globalization often involves imposing one definition of humanity, reality or the sacred, which marginalizes or vilifies those with differing views. I hope to demonstrate by these contrasts that a unified imagination of the earth through globalization poses extreme dangers, and that the fragmentation of the globe through many religious and secular and artistic projections is the only possibility for a future. That is: the possibility of a future is dependent upon many opposing images of a future. It is only by a return to the initial impulses which led such scientists as Al-Bīrūnī that a true relationship of the human to the earth can be preserved. (shrink)