One version of the desire satisfaction theory of well-being (i.e., welfare, or what is good for one) holds that only the satisfaction of one's present desires for present states of affairs can affect one's well-being. So if I desire fame today and become famous tomorrow, my well-being is positively affected onlyif tomorrow, when I am famous, I still desire to be famous. Call this the present desire satisfaction theory of well-being. I argue, contrary to this theory, that the satisfaction of (...) past desires that are no longer held does indeed affect one's well-being. The satisfaction of past desires is good for one in that the present satisfaction of past desires positively affects one's past well-being. I argue for this view in stages, starting with the recognition that many of our desires are satisfied not at an instant but over an interval of time, and that it is during this interval of time that our well-being is positively affected. Once we get our foot in the door with some temporal thickness to desire satisfaction and the associated well-being, I argue, the door must open more widely to allow for greater temporal distance between present desire satisfaction and past well-being. I defend my thesis that present satisfaction of past desires increases one's past welfare against objections, including the claim that it involves backward causation and Velleman's claim that the view is highly counterintuitive whether or not it involves backward causation. I argue that some of the objections rely on hedonistic intuitions, intuitions that most desire satisfaction theories of welfare aim to correct. Once properly understood and applied, my counterintuitive and controversial thesis is really quite innocuous. (shrink)

"Trente ans, c'est ce que nous avons gagné en espérance de vie depuis 1900 : la totalité d'une existence au XVIIe siècle. Formidable avancée qui bouleverse tout : notre vie professionnelle, amoureuse, familiale, notre rapport au monde, à la maladie, le sens même de notre destin. À partir de la cinquantaine, l'animal humain connaît une suspension entre maturité et vieillesse. Il comprend ce qu'il est précieux de sauvegarder, déraisonnable de convoiter et permis d'espérer. Que faire de ce cadeau ambigu? Comment (...) remplir cette moisson de jours supplémentaires? S'agit-il de vivre plus longtemps, ou plus intensément? Le défi de la longévité n'est-il pas d'arbitrer entre la fatigue et la ferveur, la grâce du renouveau et la disgrâce du renoncement? Voici un nouvel art de vivre l'été indien de la vie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Whereas principles of justice adjudicate interpersonal conflicts, principles of prudence adjudicate intrapersonal conflicts – i.e., conflicts between the preferences an individual has now and the preferences he will have later. On a contractarian approach, principles of justice can be theoretically grounded in a hypothetical agreement in an appropriately specified pre-moral situation in which those persons with conflicting claims have representatives pushing for their claims. Similarly, I claim, principles of prudence can be grounded in a hypothetical agreement in an appropriately specified (...) pre-prudential situation in which those temporal parts of a person with conflicting claims have representatives as advocates of their claims. During the course of developing the prudential contractarian methodology, I consider a dispute between those who would see principles of justice as the outcome of a choice (e.g., Rawls) and others (e.g., Gauthier) who argue for viewing principles of justice as the outcome of a bargain. I contend that the reasons I adduce in favor of viewing principles of prudence as the outcome of a choice weigh equally in favor of viewing principles of justice as the outcome of a bargain. Footnotes1 This paper reviews and extends some of the material from my (2001). Farid Abdel-Nour, Ben Eggleston, Umut Ergun, and David Gauthier provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, for which I am very grateful. I am also indebted to two anonymous referees and Luc Bovens for some very helpful suggestions. (shrink)

Because factory-farmed meat production inflicts gratuitous suffering upon animals and wreaks havoc on the environment, there are morally compelling reasons to become vegetarian. Yet industrial plant agriculture causes the death of many field animals, and this leads some to question whether consumers ought to get some of their protein from certain kinds of non factory-farmed meat. Donald Bruckner, for instance, boldly argues that the harm principle implies an obligation to collect and consume roadkill and that strict vegetarianism is thus (...) immoral. But this argument works only if the following claims are true: all humans have access to roadkill, roadkill would go to waste if those who happen upon it don’t themselves consume it, it’s impossible to harvest vegetables without killing animals, the animals who are killed in plant production are all-things-considered harmed by crop farming, and the best arguments for vegetarianism all endorse the harm principle. As I will argue in this paper, each claim is deeply problematic. Consequently, in most cases, humans ought to strictly eat plants and save the roadkill for cats. (shrink)

The desire-satisfaction theory of welfare says that what is basically good for a subject is the satisfaction of his desires. One challenge to this view is the existence of quirky desires, such as a desire to count blades of grass. It is hard to see why anyone would desire such things, and thus hard to believe that the satisfaction of such desires could be basically good for anyone. This suggests that only some desires are basically good when satisfied, and that (...) desire satisfactionists owe us an account of which desires these are, and why. In "Quirky Desires and Well-Being," Donald Bruckner proposes such an account: a desire is welfare-relevant (i.e., such that its satisfaction would be basically good for its subject) if and only if and because its subject could describe its object in a way that makes it comprehensible what about the object attracts him or appeals to him. We are inclined to view quirky desires as welfare-irrelevant because we assume that their objects cannot be described in such a way. But if there were a quirky desire whose object could be so described by the subject whose desire it is, then this desire would be relevant to that subject's welfare. I will argue that while Bruckner's view delivers plausible verdicts about the cases to which it is meant to apply, its account of what makes a desire welfare-relevant is unmotivated and implausible. Desire satisfactionists can retain what is plausible about his view while endorsing a better explanation of why welfare-relevant desires have that status if they accept the following account instead: a desire is welfare-relevant if and only if and because something about its object attracts, or appeals to, the subject who has the desire. (shrink)

A szabadság dilemmái -- A megrendült öntudat mítoszai -- Irás az éthoszról.

Throughout the long history of Classic Maya hieroglyphs, a logosyllabic writing system used from the late first millennium BCE through the mid-second millennium CE in southern Mesoamerica, the most commonly recorded phonetic value was the syllable u (/ʔu/). With over a dozen different u hieroglyphs, Classic Maya scribes had more options for recording /ʔu/ than any other syllable or logograph. Cognitive approaches to writing systems typically attribute graphemic variation (i.e., alternation between signs with equivalent linguistic value) to semantic differences like (...) animacy or to non-linguistic factors like identity. Distribution of Classic Maya u hieroglyphs, however, suggests that morphosyntactic context influenced which grapheme scribes wrote and when. This case suggests that scribal knowledge of Classic Maya hieroglyphs included ideas about writing's relationship to language. It also highlights the cognitive relevance of morphosyntax for a writing system's users as they differentiate among graphic signs with identical linguistic denotation. (shrink)

The Casimir force between two neutral metallic plates is often considered conclusive evidence for the reality of electromagnetic zero-point fluctuations in 'empty space' (i.e. in absence of any boundaries). However, it is not well known that the Casimir force can be derived from many different points of view. The purpose of this note is to supply a conceptually oriented introduction to a representative set of these different interpretations. The different accounts suggest that the Casimir effect reveals nothing conclusive about the (...) nature of the vacuum. (shrink)

Abstract:Sustainable development and built heritage are oft-naturalized hegemonic discourses of the dominant social class. However, under the lens of critical sociomateriality, these categories destabilize—and in Brexit-era London, epicenter of a financial and technological capitalist circulatory space, “all that is solid melts” into the scopal regime of London's View Management Framework (LVMF). Analyzing multiple discourses of Southwark's Strata SE1— billed London's first “sustainable tower”—and adaptive reuse of the historically preserved Lambeth Water Tower, I argue that these structures constitute ‘interface objects’ in (...) a broader relational geography imbricating physical material, social objects, gentrification and the naturalized epistemologies of hegemonic development within London's skyline itself. I offer a reading of critical sociomateriality which illuminates rhythms of daily life within spatial-technological systems of energy provision, urban metabolic processes, as well as “hegemonic premiums,” what Richard Barras terms expected return on symbolic capital vis-à-vis the dominant panopticism of the LVMF. This paper contributes a theorization of critical sociomateriality, operating across a diversity of scales, tactics, and disciplines, analyzing discourses and practices which insinuate politics, artifacts, and technologies across contested issues. Critical sociomateriality is presented as a methodology for deconstructing tactics for inhabiting and interfacing with ‘sustainability’ through London's skyline in an unequal capitalist system marked by dissensus over runaway development, social precarity, and inequality in lived experiences of the urban environment. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of The Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke: Correspondence: Letters 2665-3286 by E. S. de Beer. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Talent and Education was first published in 1960. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.The problem of identification, development, and utilization of talented young people is a matter of prime concern to all who are interested in the welfare of the individual and the future of the nation. This book, constituting a progress report on research related to the problem, will be of (...) particular value to educators, psychologists, social workers, community leaders, and others who are engaged in the effort to make the most of our human resources.The volume contains chapters by a number of contributors drawn from various fields in elementary, secondary, and higher education. The contributors include John E. Anderson, Robert H. Beck, Florence N. Brumbaugh, Walter W. Cook, Willis E. Dugan, Dale B. Harris, Arthur J. Lewis, Catherine Cox Miles, Mary Pilch, Maynard C. Reynolds, Anne Roe, Merrill F. Roff, Paul C. Rosenbloom, Audrey Shechtman, and E. Paul Torrance. Orville L. Freeman, governor of Minnesota, writes an indtroduction.Among the topics discussed are the nature and scientific measurement of talent, the effects of life experiences on the development of talent, the enrichment of school curricula, special grouping and acceleration in the schools, psychological aspects of some of the problems, and Russian methods of dealing with individual differences. The volume is based on papers from an Institute on Exceptional Children held at the University of Minnesota. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Second-Order Science: Logic, Strategies, Methods” by Stuart A. Umpleby. Upshot: Second-order science requires a specific methodology. It thereby reverses the classical observer-observed relation in favor of the observed - i.e., the first-order observers - if the principle of autopoiesis is acknowledged.