A volume integrating various parts of Fred Sommer's theory on logic and the philosophy of language and also extending it in a variety of ways, such as semantics and modal logic.

[Publisher's description:] When can we be morally responsible for our behavior? Is it fair to blame people for actions that are determined by heredity and environment? Can we be responsible for the actions of relatives or members of our community? In this provocative book, Tamler Sommers concludes that there are no objectively correct answers to these questions. Drawing on research in anthropology, psychology, and a host of other disciplines, Sommers argues that cross-cultural variation raises serious problems for theories (...) that propose universally applicable conditions for moral responsibility. He then develops a new way of thinking about responsibility that takes cultural diversity into account. -/- Relative Justice is a novel and accessible contribution to the ancient debate over free will and moral responsibility. Sommers provides a thorough examination of the methodology employed by contemporary philosophers in the debate and a challenge to Western assumptions about individual autonomy and its connection to moral desert. (shrink)

An Invitation to Formal Reasoning introduces the discipline of formal logic by means of a powerful new system formulated by Fred Sommers. This system, term logic, is different in a number of ways from the standard system employed in modern logic; most striking is its greater simplicity and naturalness. Based on a radically different theory of logical syntax than the one Frege used when initiating modern mathematical logic in the 19th Century, term logic borrows insights from Aristotle's syllogistic, Scholastic (...) logicians, Leibniz, and the 19th century British algebraists. Term logic takes its syntax directly from natural language, construing statements as combinations of pairs of terms, where complex terms are taken to have the same syntax as statements. Whereas standard logic requires extensive 'translation' from natural language to symbolic language, term logic requires only 'transcription' into the symbolic language. Its naturalness is the result of its ability to stay close to the forms of sentences usually found in every day discourse. Written by the founders of the term logic approach, An Invitation to Formal Reasoning is a unique introduction and exploration of this new system, offering numerous exercises and examples throughout the text. Summarising the standard system of mathematical logic to set term logic in context, and showing how the two systems compare, this book presents an alternative approach to standard modern logic for those studying formal logic, philosophy of language or computer theory. Fred Sommers is Professor Emeritus, Brandeis University, USA; George Englebretsen is Professor of Philosophy, Bishop's University, Canada. (shrink)

Reviewers of this book have praised Christina Hoff Sommer's well-reasoned argument against many feminists' reliance on misleading, politically motivated 'facts' about how women are victimised.

1. Philosophers tend to talk of belief as a ‘propositional attitude.’ As Fodor says:" The standard story about believing is that it's a two place relation, viz., a relation between a person and a proposition. My story is that believing is never an unmediated relation between a person and a proposition. In particular nobody grasps a proposition except insofar as he is appropriately related to some vehicle that expresses the proposition. " Fodor's story – that belief is a three-place relation (...) between a person, a proposition and a vehicle – is hardly non-standard; by assigning to propositions an essential place in acts of belief, he too is a ‘propositionalist’. My own view is that believing is primarily a relation between a believer and the world . While a great many human beliefs are propositional, many, perhaps most, are mondial and propositionless. As for animals who lack language, it may be that all their beliefs are mondial. In the present article, I show that distinguishing these two very different kinds of belief – de mundo as well as de dicto – enables one to explain phenomena of doxastic dissonance that standard propositionalist accounts cannot adequately explain .The next two sections, §1.1 and §1.2, are about ‘the world’ that is the doxastic object in the primary belief relation, providing needed background for the thesis that mondial belief is more primitive and basic than propositional belief.1.1. The world does not contain itself. Things in the world are …. (shrink)

Retributive emotions and behavior are thought to be adaptive for their role in improving social coordination. However, since retaliation is generally not in the short-term interests of the individual, rational self-interest erodes the motivational link between retributive emotions and the accompanying adaptive behavior. I argue that two different sets of norms have emerged to reinforce this link: (1) norms about honor and (2) norms about moral responsibility and desert. I observe that the primary difference between these types of retribution motivators (...) lies in where the normative focus is placed after an offense. In the first form of retribution, the normative focus is on the offended party. In the second, it is on the offender. Next, I show how each class of norms is well tailored to the particular features of the environment in which these forms of retributive behavior emerge. Finally, I consider some philosophical implications of these observations. I suggest that my account, if correct, would pose tough challenges for contemporary philosophical theories of moral responsibility and punishment. (shrink)

They do not need to be rescued from masculinity."--BOOK JACKET.

The use of deception in research is generally permitted so long as participants are debriefed at the conclusion of their participation. Several authoritative research ethics guidelines allow investigators to omit debriefing under certain circumstances, however. Here we examine various justifications for forgoing debriefing in deceptive research, including concerns about subject pool contamination, the risk that revealing the deception will be harmful or distressing to participants, and issues of practicability. We conclude that, contrary to current practice, omitting debriefing is ethically acceptable (...) only when debriefing is impracticable, the deception is innocuous, and no reasonable person would object to involvement in the research. (shrink)

The last issue of this journal published an exchange between Marilyn Friedman and me that had taken place at a lively session of the American Philosophical Association in December, 1990. Friedman's paper “‘They Lived Happily Ever After’: Sommers on Women and Marriage” was a barbed critique of my views on the family. My rejoinder, “Do These Feminist Like Women?” pointed out that Friedman's orthodox brand of feminism was not sensitive to the values and aspirations of most American women. That (...) issue of the Journal of Social Philosophy also published a third paper of Friedman's “Does Sommers Like Women?” twice as long again as my rejoinder. This second critique went further into earlier writings of mine raising new issues, and criticizing me in rather unpleasant ad feminam ways. If an uncharacteristic asperity colors my response, it is because I do not find myself able to deal coolly and impersonally with the accusation that I intentionally misrepresent some of the feminist philosophers I criticize. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge the core of David Chalmers' argument against materialism-the claim that "there is a logically possible world physically identical to ours, in which the positive facts about consciousness do not hold." First, I analyze the move from conceivability to logical possibility. Following George Seddon, I consider the case of a floating iron bar and argue that even this seemingly conceivable event has implicit logical contradictions in its description. I then show that the distinctions Chalmers employs between (...) primary and secondary intensions, and a priori and a posteriori entailment, break down upon close examination-with iron bars and with consciousness it is impossible to know where primary intensions end and secondary intensions begin. I extend this analysis of logical possibility to the famous zombie thought experiment and conclude not that a zombie world is logically impossible, but rather that, at present, the question is open. Finally, I show how a similar line of argument may be used to undermine the "Mary the color scientist" thought experiment as well. (shrink)

" Vice and virtue in everyday life is a bestseller in college ethics because students find the readings both personally engaging and intellectually challenging. Under the guidance of classical and modern writers on morality, students using this textbook come to grips with moral issues of everyday life. They discover that some currently fashionable approaches to morality, such as egoism and relativism, have long histories. They also become aquainted with the debates and criticisms of various moral doctrines, learning central ethical theories (...) and methods for reasoning about moral issues in the process." -- Back cover. (shrink)

In this article, we examine conceptual and practical issues pertaining to relationship boundaries within the helping profession. Although our focus is primarily on relationships between mental health professionals and clients, there are considerable implications for a new approach to ethically structuring and understanding the construct of "required distance" in many human-interactive professions, such as teaching, religious leadership, public administration, and others. We define the concept of boundary as applied to human relationships, provide examples of boundary breaks, and raise questions regarding (...) how to evaluate the significance and morality issues raised by specific boundary breaks. Questions and dilemmas are presented regarding boundary setting and accidental or deliberate boundary breaking. Representative dangers present in boundary breaks are identified, and examples are provided. Possible beneficial outcomes are also discussed. Finally, a suggested protocol for assessing a proposed boundary break is provided, much of which is drawn from the work and thinking of Laura Brown, applied more generally in this article, with additions from our perspectives. (shrink)

Modern thinkers regard logic as a purely formal discipline like number theory, and not to be confused with any empirical discipline such as cognitive psychology, which may seek to characterize how people actually reason. Opposed to this is the traditional view that even a formal logic can be cognitively veridical – descriptive of procedures people actually follow in arriving at their deductive judgments (logic as Laws of Thought). In a cognitively veridical logic, any formal proof that a deductive judgment, intuitively (...) arrived at, is valid should ideally conform to the method the reasoning subject has used to arrive at that judgment. More specifically, it should reveal the actual reckoning process that the reasoning subject more or less consciously carries out when they make a deductive inference. That the common logical words used in everyday reasoning – words such as 'and', 'if,''some', 'is''not,' and 'all'– have fixed positive and negative charges has escaped the notice of modern logic. The present paper shows how, by unconsciously recognizing 'not' and 'all' as 'minus-words', while recognizing 'and', 'some', and 'is' as 'plus words', a child can intuitively reckon, for example, 'not (−) all (−) dogs are (+) friendly' as equivalent to 'some (+) dogs aren't (−) friendly': −(−D+F) = +D−F. (shrink)

Consent governs innumerable everyday social interactions, including sex, medical exams, the use of property, and economic transactions. Yet little is known about how ordinary people reason about the validity of consent. Across the domains of sex, medicine, and police entry, Study 1 showed that when agents lack autonomous decision-making capacities, participants are less likely to view their consent as valid; however, failing to exercise this capacity and deciding in a nonautonomous way did not reduce consent judgments. Study 2 found that (...) specific and concrete incapacities reduced judgments of valid consent, but failing to exercise these specific capacities did not, even when the consenter makes an irrational and inauthentic decision. Finally, Study 3 showed that the effect of autonomy on judgments of valid consent carries important downstream consequences for moral reasoning about the rights and obligations of third parties, even when the consented-to action is morally wrong. Overall, these findings suggest that laypeople embrace a normative, domain-general concept of valid consent that depends consistently on the possession of autonomous capacities, but not on the exercise of these capacities. Autonomous decisions and autonomous capacities thus play divergent roles in moral reasoning about consent interactions: while the former appears relevant for assessing the wrongfulness of consented-to acts, the latter plays a role in whether consent is regarded as authoritative and therefore as transforming moral rights. (shrink)

"Friendship", for Aristotle, is a term with "focal meaning" which denominates relationships as casual as fellow travelers on a voyage, as permanent as spouses, and whose motives are as various as the commercial, military, religious, sexual, political and the virtuous. What can be said of all these relationships is that they involve a solidarity, a concordat, a reciprocity, which has its foundation in a common field between the parties and which produces common actions or exchanges. All friendships tend to equality (...) in the sense that they do not insist on what is due as an ultimate end; friendship, like equity, surpasses justice in the fulfillment of what is owed. Because friendship fosters solidarity and justice it is politically important as a virtue-context, according to Aristotle. Is it possible that friendship can function as a virtue-context within economic life as well? Aristotle's notion of a type of useful friendship which functions through expectation of moral behavior will be shown to provide both motive and context for the performance of acts of virtue in a business setting. (shrink)

I aim to alleviate the pessimism with which some philosophers regard the 'objective attitude', thereby removing a particular obstacle which P.F. Strawson and others have placed in the way of more widespread scepticism about moral responsibility. First, I describe what I consider the objective attitude to be, and then address concerns about this raised by Susan Wolf. Next, I argue that aspects of certain attitudes commonly thought to be opposed to the objective attitude are in fact compatible with it. Finally, (...) I examine the prospects of someone who wishes to adopt the objective attitude permanently. In response to philosophers who claim that this would be psychologically impossible, I argue that our commitment to attitudes that presuppose moral responsibility can soften and fade, often without our noticing it. (shrink)