In the philosophical perspective of the Roman Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca virtus was a central theme, and historically he is an important conveyor of the Platonic-Stoic doctrine of virtue---which posits four primary virtues, namely, prudentia, fortitudo, temperantia, and iustitia. ;Despite recent research in Senecan scholarship and contemporary interest in the doctrine of virtue, there has been no study which unites these two philosophically important areas of investigation. The purpose of the study is to investigate and analyze, from the standpoint (...) of current philosophical scholarship, Seneca's doctrine of virtue---with particular reference to the four "cardinal" virtues. The philosopher's position concerning each of the four is examined with regard to how he perceived: the nature of each, their relationship, and their unity. The inquiry is limited to a discussion of Seneca's philosophical writings, viz.: the 124 Epistulae Morales , the ten Dialogi, the De Beneficiis, the De Clementia, and the Naturales Quaestiones. Specifically, this dissertation argues that Seneca's philosophical works illuminate the traditional Stoic doctrine of the unity of the four major virtues in which wisdom is the underlying connection which bonds all primary virtues into the rare unity of perfect virtue . The dissertation explains that there exists in Seneca's thought a logical progression of the four primary virtues from wisdom, to courage, to moderation, and ultimately to justice, and it systematically presents the connection and reciprocal relationships which exist between each of the four mutually entailing virtues. An identification and analysis of Seneca's philosophic contributions to the subject of virtue is conducted by setting his views against the Platonic-Aristotelian and the Hellenistic, particularly Stoic, traditions which he inherited. Occasional reference is made to ways in which Seneca's doctrine of virtue compares with, and, in some cases, influences later philosophers. ;The first chapter examines the metaphysical foundations of Senecan virtue. The subsequent chapters consider Seneca's views concerning the virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice, respectively. The sixth chapter inquires into the teleological dimensions of Seneca's doctrine of virtue. The dissertation closes with recapitulations, conclusions, and implications for further research. (shrink)

An ancient argument attributed to the philosopher Carneades is presented that raises critical questions about the concept of an all-virtuous Divine being. The argument is based on the premises that virtue involves overcoming pains and dangers, and that only a being that can suffer or be destroyed is one for whom there are pains and dangers. The conclusion is that an all-virtuous Divine (perfect) being cannot exist. After presenting this argument, reconstructed from sources in Sextus Empiricus and Cicero, this paper (...) goes on to model it as a deductively valid sequence of reasoning. The paper also discusses whet her the premises are true. Questions about the possibility and value of proving and disproving the existence of God by logical reasoning are raised, as well as ethical questions about how the cardinal ethical virtues should be defined. (shrink)

A Π01 class is an effectively closed set of reals. We study properties of these classes determined by cardinality, measure and category as well as by the complexity of the members of a class P. Given an effective enumeration {Pe:e < ω} of the Π01 classes, the index set I for a certain property is the set of indices e such that Pe has the property. For example, the index set of binary Π01 classes of positive measure is Σ02 complete. (...) Various notions of boundedness are discussed and classified. For example, the index set of the recursively bounded classes is Σ03 complete and the index set of the recursively bounded classes which have infinitely many recursive members is Π04 complete. Consideration of the Cantor-Bendixson derivative leads to index sets in the transfinite levels of the hyperarithmetic hierarchy. (shrink)

Erdős proved that for every infinite \ there is \ with \, such that all pairs of points from Y have distinct distances, and he gave partial results for general a-ary volume. In this paper, we search for the strongest possible canonization results for a-ary volume, making use of general model-theoretic machinery. The main difficulty is for singular cardinals; to handle this case we prove the following. Suppose T is a stable theory, \ is a finite set of formulas of (...) T, \, and X is an infinite subset of M. Then there is \ with \ and an equivalence relation E on Y with infinitely many classes, each class infinite, such that Y is \\)-indiscernible. We also consider the definable version of these problems, for example we assume \ is perfect and we find some perfect \ with all distances distinct. Finally we show that Erdős’s theorem requires some use of the axiom of choice. (shrink)

First published in 1984, Cultural Analysis is a systematic examination of the theories of culture contained in the writings of four contemporary social theorists: Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jürgen Habermas. This study of their work clarifies their contributions to the analysis of culture and shows the converging assumptions that the authors believe are laying the foundation for a new approach to the study of culture. The focus is specifically on culture, a concept that remains subject (...) to ambiguities of treatment, and concentrates on questions concerning the definition and content of culture, its construction, its relations with social conditions, and the manner in which it may be changing. The books demonstrates how these writers have made strides towards defining culture as an objective element of social interaction which can be subjected to critical investigation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this wide-ranging interview Professor Douglas V. Porpora discusses a number of issues. First, how he became a Critical Realist through his early work on the concept of structure. Second, drawing on his Reconstructing Sociology, his take on the current state of American sociology. This leads to discussion of the broader range of his work as part of Margaret Archer’s various Centre for Social Ontology projects, and on moral-macro reasoning and the concept of truth in political discourse.

Douglas proposes a new ideal in which values serve an essential function throughout scientific inquiry, but where the role values play is constrained at key points, protecting the integrity and objectivity of science.

Commonsense Consequentialism is a book about morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, Douglas W. Portmore defends a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons. Broadly construed, consequentialism is the view that an act's deontic status is determined by how its outcome ranks relative to those of the available alternatives on some evaluative ranking. Portmore argues that outcomes should (...) be ranked, not according to their impersonal value, but according to how much reason the relevant agent has to desire that each outcome obtains and that, when outcomes are ranked in this way, we arrive at a version of consequentialism that can better account for our commonsense moral intuitions than even many forms of deontology can. What's more, Portmore argues that we should accept this version of consequentialism, because we should accept both that an agent can be morally required to do only what she has most reason to do and that what she has most reason to do is to perform the act that would produce the outcome that she has most reason to want to obtain.Although the primary aim of the book is to defend a particular moral theory, Portmore defends this theory as part of a coherent whole concerning our commonsense views about the nature and substance of both morality and rationality. Thus, it will be of interest not only to those working on consequentialism and other areas of normative ethics, but also to those working in metaethics. Beyond offering an account of morality, Portmore offers accounts of practical reasons, practical rationality, and the objective/subjective obligation distinction. (shrink)

This chapter is an edited transcription of an author-meets-critics session at the Truth 20|20 Conference, on Douglas Edwards’ award-winning book, The Metaphysics of Truth (2018, Oxford University Press). The Metaphysics of Truth tackles fundamental questions about the role of truth in connections between language and the world. Edwards proposes a pluralist account, according to which sentences in different domains get to be true in different ways. Kellen’s questions center around how to locate Edwards’s pluralist account given certain distinctions between (...) varieties of truth pluralism, and on how to determine what domains certain sentences belong to, especially mixed compounds. Taylor’s comments critically investigate Edwards’ critiques of deflationism, particularly to do with what the deflationist can say about whether truth counts as a ‘sparse’ or ‘abundant’ property, and whether deflationists are able to explain important differences between sparse properties such as being magnetic, and abundant properties, which deflationists will likely think include being true. Lynch provides several questions about the metaphysics of Edwards’s account, including the nature of the determination relation, and the nature of the property of truth itself, and whether Edwards’s account of that property manages to distinguish itself from something a truth minimalist would be happy with. (shrink)

During the Gulf war, CNN correspondent Peter Arnett distinguished himself with its courageous reporting in Iraq while under fire by the U.S.-led coalition which dropped more bombs on Iraq than were unleashed in World War II. Reporting live from Baghdad throughout the war, Arnett provided vivid daily accounts of life in Iraq during one of the most sustained air attacks in history. From his live telephone reporting of the early hours of the U.S. attack on Iraq in January 1991 through (...) his live satellite reports of the effects of the daily bombing of Iraq, Arnett distinguished himself through his attempts to cut through the lies and disinformation of both sides and to provide accurate reporting on the effects of the U.S.-led coalition assault against Iraq. (shrink)

Although fallacies have been common since Aristotle, until recently little attention has been devoted to identifying and defining them. Furthermore, the concept of fallacy itself has lacked a sufficiently clear meaning to make it a useful tool for evaluating arguments. Douglas Walton takes a new analytical look at the concept of fallacy and presents an up-to-date analysis of its usefulness for argumentation studies. Walton uses case studies illustrating familiar arguments and tricky deceptions in everyday conversation where the charge of (...) fallaciousness is at issue. The numerous case studies show in concrete terms many practical aspects of how to use textual evidence to identify and analyze fallacies and to evaluate arguments as fallacious. Walton looks at how an argument is used in the context of conversation. He defines a fallacy as a conversational move, or sequence of moves, that is supposed to be an argument that contributes to the purpose of the conversation but in reality interferes with it. The view is a pragmatic one, based on the assumption that when people argue, they do so in a context of dialogue, a conventionalized normative framework that is goal-directed. Such a contextual framework is shown to be crucial in determining whether an argument has been used correctly. Walton also shows how examples of fallacies given in the logic textbooks characteristically turn out to be variants of reasonable, even if defeasible or questionable arguments, based on presumptive reasoning. This is the essence of the evaluation problem. A key thesis of the book, which must not be taken for granted as previous textbooks have so often done, is that you can spot a fallacy from how it was used in a context of dialogue. This is an innovative and even, as Walton notes, "a radical and controversial" theory of fallacy. (shrink)

Properties and objects are everywhere, but remain a philosophical mystery. Douglas Ehring argues that the idea of tropes--properties and relations understood as particulars--provides the best foundation for a metaphysical account of properties and objects. He develops and defends a new theory of trope nominalism.

Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation presents the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners. The book teaches by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed. Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton shows how arguments can be reasonable under the right dialogue conditions (...) by using critical questions to evaluate them. The book teaches by example, both in the text itself and in exercises, but it is based on methods that have been developed through the author's thirty years of research in argumentation studies. (shrink)

What is truth? What role does truth play in the connections between language and the world? What is the relationship between truth and being? Douglas Edwards tackles these questions and develops a distinctive metaphysical worldview. He argues that in some domains language responds to the world, whereas in others language generates the world.

The book concerns what I take to be the least controversial normative principle concerning action: you ought to perform your best option—best, that is, in terms of whatever ultimately matters. The book sets aside the question of what ultimately matters so as to focus on more basic issues, such as: What are our options? Do I have the option of typing out the cure for cancer if that’s what I would in fact do if I had the right intentions at (...) the right times (e.g., the intention to type the letter T at t1, the intention to type the letter H at t2, the intention to type the letter E at t3, etc.)? If I can’t form intentions voluntarily, does that mean that I don’t have the option of forming the intention that I ought to form? Which options do we assess directly in terms of their own goodness and which do we assess in terms of their relations to the goodness of other options? What do we hold fixed when assessing how good an option is? Do we, for instance, hold fixed the agent’s future beliefs, desires, and intentions? And do we hold fixed the agent’s predictable future misbehavior? Lastly, how do the things that ultimately matter determine the goodness of an option? If one of the things that ultimately matters in determining the goodness of an option is that the option doesn’t involve violating anyone’s rights, do we evaluate the option itself in terms of whether it involves violating anyone’s rights or do we evaluate the option’s prospect in terms of this and then the option in terms of its prospect? And what if there is indeterminacy or uncertainty with regards to whether an option would involve violating someone’s rights? (shrink)

Cardinal Mercier’s Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy is a standard work, prepared at the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Louvain, mainly for the use of clerical students in Catholic Seminaries. Though undoubtedly elementary, it contains a clear, simple, and methodological exposition of the principles and problems of every department of philosophy, and its appeal is not to any particular class, but broadly human and universal. Volume I includes a general introduction to philosophy and sections on cosmology, psychology, criteriology, and metaphysics or (...) ontology. (shrink)

Second edition of the introductory guidebook to the basic principles of constructing sound arguments and criticising bad ones. Non-technical in approach, it is based on 186 examples, which Douglas Walton, a leading authority in the field of informal logic, discusses and evaluates in clear, illustrative detail. Walton explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical responses. This edition takes into (...) account many developments in the field of argumentation study that have occurred since 1989, many created by the author. Drawing on these developments, Walton includes and analyzes 36 new topical examples and also brings in work on argumentation schemes. Ideally suited for use in courses in informal logic and introduction to philosophy, this book will also be valuable to students of pragmatics, rhetoric, and speech communication. (shrink)

A leading expert in informal logic, Douglas Walton turns his attention in this new book to how reasoning operates in trials and other legal contexts, with special emphasis on the law of evidence. The new model he develops, drawing on methods of argumentation theory that are gaining wide acceptance in computing fields like artificial intelligence, can be used to identify, analyze, and evaluate specific types of legal argument. In contrast with approaches that rely on deductive and inductive logic and (...) rule out many common types of argument as fallacious, Walton’s aim is to provide a more expansive view of what can be considered "reasonable" in legal argument when it is construed as a dynamic, rule-governed, and goal-directed conversation. This dialogical model gives new meaning to the key notions of relevance and probative weight, with the latter analyzed in terms of pragmatic criteria for what constitutes plausible evidence rather than truth. (shrink)

_Arguments from Ignorance _explores the situations in which the argument from ignorance functions as a respectable form of reasoning and those in which it is indeed fallacious. Douglas Walton draws on everyday conversations on all kinds of practical matters in which the _argumentum ad ignorantiam _is used quite appropriately to infer conclusions. He also discusses the inappropriate use of this kind of argument, referring to various major case studies, including the Salem witchcraft trials, the McCarthy hearings, and the Alger (...) Hiss case. This book makes an original contribution in the areas of argumentation theory and informal logic, contending that, despite its traditional classification as a fallacy, the argument from ignorance is a genuine, very common, and legitimate type of argumentation with an identifiable structure. But the book is also interdisciplinary in scope, explaining many widely interesting and controversial subjects in artificial intelligence, medical education, philosophy of science, and philosophy of law in a clear way that makes it accessible to a broad range of readers. (shrink)

Cardinal Mercier’s Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy is a standard work, prepared at the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Louvain, mainly for the use of clerical students in Catholic Seminaries. Though undoubtedly elementary, it contains a clear, simple, and methodological exposition of the principles and problems of every department of philosophy, and its appeal is not to any particular class, but broadly human and universal. Volume II contains sections on natural theology, logic, ethics and outlines of the history of philosophy.

Cardinal Mercier's A Manual of Modern Scholastic Philosophy is a standard work, prepared at the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Louvain, mainly for the use of clerical students in Catholic seminaries. Though undoubtedly elementary, it contains a clear, simple, and methodological exposition of the principles and problems of every department of philosophy, and its appeal is not to any particular class, but broadly human and universal. Volume I includes a general introduction to philosophy and sections on cosmology, psychology, criteriology, and metaphysics (...) or ontology. Volume II contains sections on natural theology, logic, ethics, and outlines of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This article provides a rigorous defense of innate true belief in the Meno, to my knowledge, the first of its kind. While several commentators have proposed innate true belief in the past, the position has never been defended or explained in detail. Instead, the most thorough discussions of Plato’s innatism have opted for different innate objects. I defend my proposal against these recent alternatives by showing that the passages often thought to imply innate knowledge can arguably be better read in (...) other ways. I then argue that they should be so read, because of an “awareness condition” Plato had on knowledge at the time. (shrink)

A rational defense of the criminal law must provide a comprehensive theory of culpability. A comprehensive theory of culpability must resolve several difficult issues; in this article I will focus on only one. The general problem arises from the lack of a systematic account of relative culpability. An account of relative culpability would identify and defend a set of considerations to assess whether, why, under what circumstances, and to what extent persons who perform a criminal act with a given culpable (...) state are more or less blameworthy than persons who perform that act with a different culpable state. (shrink)

Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of mass media in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically occur in the mass (...) media, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments. He draws upon the most recent developments in artificial intelligence, including dialogical theories of argument, which he developed, as well as speech act theory. Each chapter presents solutions to problems central to understanding, analyzing, and criticizing media argumentation. (shrink)

Les trois dialogues composés par le cardinal Nicolas de Cues pendant l'été 1450 ne résument pas toute la pensée de cet auteur, mais ils éclairent d'un jour relativement nouveau sa réflexion sur le lien entre sagesse et savoir. Proche en cela des Anciens, Nicolas de Cues pense leur unité dans la lumière de l'Un - de la Déité, écrit-il parfois - réfléchie par la puissance de l'esprit humain. Cet esprit est compris comme imago dei, non pas image de Dieu, car (...) tout ce qui est image de Dieu, mais plutôt copie de Dieu, reprise de la toute-puissance divine dans les limites que lui impose, toutefois, le fait d'être finie. La vérité étant en elle-même inaccessible ici-bas - inattingible, écrit Nicolas de Cues - reste le développement de cette vérité ou de l'Un, c'est à dire ce monde que l'esprit a pour tâche de mesurer, de reprendre, de recréer. Savoir pour inventer un monde à venir, avec humilité et ouverture à l'Etranger : cela s'accorde précisément avec ce que certains historiens nomment l'Humanisme. (shrink)

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), a student of canon law who became a Catholic cardinal, was widely considered the most important original philosopher of the Renaissance. He wrote principally on theology, philosophy, and church politics. This volume makes most of Nicholas's other writings on Church and reform available in English for the first time.

Recent work in artificial intelligence has increasingly turned to argumentation as a rich, interdisciplinary area of research that can provide new methods related to evidence and reasoning in the area of law. Douglas Walton provides an introduction to basic concepts, tools and methods in argumentation theory and artificial intelligence as applied to the analysis and evaluation of witness testimony. He shows how witness testimony is by its nature inherently fallible and sometimes subject to disastrous failures. At the same time (...) such testimony can provide evidence that is not only necessary but inherently reasonable for logically guiding legal experts to accept or reject a claim. Walton shows how to overcome the traditional disdain for witness testimony as a type of evidence shown by logical positivists, and the views of trial sceptics who doubt that trial rules deal with witness testimony in a way that yields a rational decision-making process. (shrink)

To consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, take whatever considerations that the non-consequentialist theory holds to be relevant to determining the deontic statuses of actions and insist that those considerations are relevant to determining the proper ranking of outcomes. In this way, the consequentialist can produce an ordering of outcomes that when combined with her criterion of rightness yields the same set of deontic verdicts that the non-consequentialist theory yields. In this paper, I argue that any plausible non-consequentialist theory can be consequentialized. (...) I explain the motivation for the consequentializing project and defend it against recent criticisms by Mark Schroeder and others. (shrink)

If “perfectionism” in ethics refers to those normative theories that treat the fulfillment or realization of human nature as central to an account of both goodness and moral obligation, in what sense is “human flourishing” a perfectionist notion? How much of what we take “human flourishing” to signify is the result of our understanding of human nature? Is the content of this concept simply read off an examination of our nature? Is there no place for diversity and individuality? Is the (...) belief that the content of such a normative concept can be determined by an appeal to human nature merely the result of epistemological naiveté? What is the exact character of the connection between human flourishing and human nature? These questions are the ultimate concern of this essay, but to appreciate the answers that will be offered it is necessary to understand what is meant by “human flourishing.” “Human flourishing” is a relatively recent term in ethics. It seems to have developed in the last two decades because the traditional translation of the Greek term eudaimonia as “happiness” failed to communicate clearly that eudaimonia was an objective good, not merely a subjective good. (shrink)

Scare Tactics, the first book on the subject, provides a theory of the structure of reasoning used in fear and threat appeal argumentation. Such arguments come under the heading of the argumentum ad baculum, the `argument to the stick/club', traditionally treated as a fallacy in the logic textbooks. The new dialectical theory is based on case studies of many interesting examples of the use of these arguments in advertising, public relations, politics, international negotiations, and everyday argumentation on all kinds of (...) subjects. Many of these arguments are amusing, once you see the clever tactic used; others are scary. Some of the arguments appear to be quite reasonable, while others are highly suspicious, or even outrageously fraudulent. In addition to the examples taken from logic textbooks, other cases treated come from a variety of sources, including political debates, legal arguments, and arguments from media sources, like magazine articles and television ads. The purpose of this book is to explain how such arguments work as devices of persuasion, and to develop a method for analyzing and evaluating their reasonable and fallacious uses in particular cases. The book shows how such arguments share a common structure, revealing several distinctive forms of argument nested within each other. Based on its account of this cognitive structure, the new dialectical theory presents methods for identifying, analyzing, and evaluating these arguments, as they are used in specific cases. The book is a scholarly contribution to argumentation theory. It is written in an accessible style, and uses many colorful and provocative examples of fear and threat appeal arguments that are suitable for classroom discussions. The matters treated will be of interest to professionals and students in law, critical thinking, advertising, speech communication, informal logic, cognitive science, rhetoric, and media studies. (shrink)

A Bibliography of Douglas Walton’s Published Works, 1971-20.

What does Spinoza mean when he claims, as he does several times in the Ethics, that particular things are expressions of God’s nature or attributes? This article interprets these claims as a version of what is called theophany in the Neoplatonist tradition. Theophany is the process by which particular things come to exist as determinate manifestations of a divine nature that is in itself not determinate. Spinoza’s understanding of theophany diverges significantly from that of the Neoplatonist John Scottus Eriugena, largely (...) because he understands the non-determinateness of the divine nature in a very different way. His view is more similar, I argue, to what is presented in the work of Ibn ‘Arabī, under the name “tajallī”. (shrink)

In this first modern, critical assessment of the place of mathematics in Berkeley's philosophy and Berkeley's place in the history of mathematics, Douglas M. Jesseph provides a bold reinterpretation of Berkeley's work.

This chapter reviews recent philosophical and neuroethical literature on the morality of moral neuroenhancements. It first briefly outlines the main moral arguments that have been made concerning moral status neuroenhancements. These are neurointerventions that would augment the moral status of human persons. It then surveys recent debate regarding moral desirability neuroenhancements: neurointerventions that augment that the moral desirability of human character traits, motives or conduct. This debate has contested, among other claims (i) Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu’s contention that there (...) is a moral imperative to pursue the development of moral desirability neuroenhancements, (ii) Thomas Douglas’ claim that voluntarily undergoing moral desirability neuroenhancements would often be morally permissible, and (iii) David DeGrazia’s claim that moral desirability neuroenhancements would often be morally desirable. The chapter discusses a number of concerns that have been raised regarding moral desirability neuroenhancements, including concerns that they would restrict freedom, would produce only a superficial kind of moral improvement, would rely on technologies that are liable to be misused, and would frequently misfire, resulting in moral deterioration rather than moral improvement. (shrink)

Alexander X. Douglas situates Spinoza's philosophy in its immediate historical context, and argues that much of his work was conceived with the aim of rebutting the claims of his contemporaries. In contrast to them, Spinoza argued that philosophy reveals the true nature of God, and reinterpreted the concept of God in profound and radical ways.

In this article, I argue that Brad Hooker's rule-consequentialism implausibly implies that what earthlings are morally required to sacrifice for the sake of helping their less fortunate brethren depends on whether or not other people exist on some distant planet even when these others would be too far away for earthlings to affect.

This paper examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture in two large international CPA firms, auditors'' personal values and the ethical orientation that those values dictate, and judgments in ethical dilemmas typical of those that accountants face. Using an experimental task consisting of multiple judgments designed to vary in "moral intensity" (Jones, 1991), and unique as well as tried-and-true approaches to variable measurements, this study examined the judgments of more than three hundred participants in our study. ANCOVA and path analysis (...) results indicate that: (1) Ethical judgments in situations of high moral intensity are affected by personal values and by environmental variables, such as the professional code of conduct (direct and indirect effects) and previous ethics instruction (direct effect only). (2) Corporate ethical culture, and a relatively strong firm rules-orientation, affect auditors'' idealism but not relativism, and therefore indirectly affect ethical judgments. Jones'' (1991) moral intensity argument is supported: differences in the characteristics of specific judgment tasks apparently result in different decision processes. (shrink)

Explanation-Aware Computing: Papers from the 2007 AAAI Workshop, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Technical Report WS-07-06, Menlo Park California, AAAI Press, 2007, 1-9.

This paper proposes an argumentation-based procedure for legal interpretation, by reinterpreting the traditional canons of textual interpretation in terms of argumentation schemes, which are then classified, formalized, and represented through argument visualization and evaluation tools. The problem of statutory interpretation is framed as one of weighing contested interpretations as pro and con arguments. The paper builds an interpretation procedure by formulating a set of argumentation schemes that can be used to comparatively evaluate the types of arguments used in cases of (...) contested statutory interpretation in law. A simplified version of the Carneades Argumentation System is applied in a case analysis showing how the procedure works. A logical model for statutory interpretation is finally presented, covering pro-tanto and all-things-considered interpretive conclusions. (shrink)