John Broome argues that fairness requires that claims are satisfied in proportion to their strength. Broome holds that, when distributing indivisible goods, fairness requires the use of weighted lotteries as a surrogate to satisfy proportionally each candidate's claims. In this article, we present two arguments against Broome's account of fairness. First, we argue that it is almost impossible to calculate the weights of the lotteries in accordance with the requirements of fairness. Second, we argue that Broome rules out those methods (...) whose use might provide some resolution to this problem. From these arguments, we conclude that, contra Broome, fairness does not require the proportional satisfaction of claims. (shrink)

What role does ethics play in modern-day warfare? Is it possible for ethics and militarism to exist hand-in-hand? James Eastwood examines the Israeli military and its claim to be "the most moral army in the world." This claim has been strongly contested by human rights bodies and international institutions in their analysis of recent military engagements in the West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon. Yet at the same time, many in Israel believe this claim: including the general public, military (...) personnel, and politicians. Compiled from extensive research including interviews with soldiers, Eastwood unpacks the ethical pedagogy of the Israeli military, as well as soldier-led activism which voices a moral critique, and argues that the belief in moral warfare does not exist separately from the growing violence of Israel's occupation. This book is ideal for those interested in military ethics and Israeli politics, and provides crucial in-depth analysis for students and researchers alike. It examines theories of morality and ethics in war through a comprehensive study of the Israel Defence Forces. It will appeal to researchers and students exploring military ethics and Israeli politics, international relations, as well as those studying war and politics in the wider Middle East. It also examines theories of morality and ethics in war through a comprehensive study of the Israel Defence Forces. (shrink)

This authoritative volume provides a comprehensive road map of the important and rapidly growing field of emotion regulation.

John Broome has proposed a theory of fairness according to which fairness requires that agents’ claims to goods be satisfied in proportion to the relative strength of those claims. In the case of competing claims for a single indivisible good, Broome argues that what fairness requires is the use of a weighted lottery as a surrogate to satisfying the competing claims: the relative chance of each claimant's winning the lottery should be set to the relative strength of each claimant's claim. (...) In this journal, James Kirkpatrick and Nick Eastwood have objected that the use of weighted lotteries in the case of indivisible goods is unacceptable. In this article, I explain why Kirkpatrick and Eastwood's objection misses its mark. (shrink)

Questions about the relation between identity and discernibility are important both in philosophy and in model theory. We show how a philosophical question about identity and dis- cernibility can be ‘factorized’ into a philosophical question about the adequacy of a formal language to the description of the world, and a mathematical question about discernibility in this language. We provide formal definitions of various notions of discernibility and offer a complete classification of their logical relations. Some new and surprising facts are (...) proved; for instance, that weak dis- cernibility corresponds to discernibility in a language with constants for every object, and that weak discernibility is the most discerning nontrivial discernibility relation. (shrink)

Explores the theories of democratic individualism articulated in the works of the American transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, pragmatic philosophers William James and John Dewey, and African-American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.

Introduced into the philosophical lexicon during the Eighteenth Century, the term ‘aesthetic’ has come to be used to designate, among other things, a kind of object, a kind of judgment, a kind of attitude, a kind of experience, and a kind of value. For the most part, aesthetic theories have divided over questions particular to one or another of these designations: whether artworks are necessarily aesthetic objects; how to square the allegedly perceptual basis of aesthetic judgments with the fact that (...) we give reasons in support of them; how best to capture the elusive contrast between an aesthetic attitude and a practical one; whether to define aesthetic experience according to its phenomenological or representational content; how best to understand the relation between aesthetic value and aesthetic experience. But questions of more general nature have lately arisen, and these have tended to have a skeptical cast: whether any use of ‘aesthetic’ may be explicated without appeal to some other; whether agreement respecting any use is sufficient to ground meaningful theoretical agreement or disagreement; whether the term ultimately answers to any legitimate philosophical purpose that justifies its inclusion in the lexicon. The skepticism expressed by such general questions did not begin to take hold until the later part of the 20th century, and this fact prompts the question whether (a) the concept of the aesthetic is inherently problematic and it is only recently that we have managed to see that it is, or (b) the concept is fine and it is only recently that we have become muddled enough to imagine otherwise. Adjudicating between these possibilities requires a vantage from which to take in both early and late theorizing on aesthetic matters. (shrink)

Written in a jargon-free way, Body Matters provides a clear and accessible phenomenological critique of core assumptions in mainstream biomedicine and explores ways in which health and illness are experienced and interpreted differently in various socio-historical situations. By drawing on the disciplines of literature, cultural anthropology, sociology, medical history, and philosophy, the authors attempt to dismantle common presuppositions we have about human afflictions and examine how the methods of phenomenology open up new ways to interpret the body and to re-envision (...) therapy. (shrink)

Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 50, Issue 2, Page 169-201, Spring 2022.

Aristotle is a rarity in the history of philosophy and science - he is a towering figure in the history of both disciplines. Moreover, he devoted a great deal of philosophical attention to the nature of scientific knowledge. How then do his philosophical reflections on scientific knowledge impact his actual scientific inquiries? In this book James Lennox sets out to answer this question. He argues that Aristotle has a richly normative view of scientific inquiry, and that those norms are (...) of two kinds: a general, question-guided framework applicable to all scientific inquiries, and domain-specific norms reflecting differences in the target of inquiry and in the means of observation available to researchers. To see these norms of inquiry in action, the second half of this book examines Aristotle's investigations of animals, the soul, material compounds, the motions of heavenly bodies, and respiration. (shrink)

This is an Introduction to the special issue of Metaphilosophy entitled Philosophy as a Way of Life, giving a brief account of the genesis of the project, an overview of the topic, and a summary of the topics covered in the issue.

This paper defends the notion of downward causation. I will seek to elucidate this notion, explain why it is a useful way of thinking, and respond to criticisms attacking its intelligibility. My account of downward causation will be in many respects similar to the account recently advanced by Ellis. The overall framework I will adopt is the interventionist treatment of causation I have defended elsewhere: X causes Y when Y changes under a suitable manipulation of X. When X is at (...) a higher “level” than Y this allows for the possibility of downward causation from X to Y. True claims of downward causation must meet certain additional conditions, some of which have already been discussed by Ellis. These include the condition that X must have a homogenous effect on Y in the sense that the effect of X on Y must be the same regardless of how X is “realized” at lower levels. In addition, the most plausible examples of downward causation will involve causes X, that in a sense that I will try to specify, are capable of being manipulated by macro-level interventions that have a coordinated or organized impact on them, as when one manipulates the temperature of a gas by placing it in a heat bath.Three common criticisms of the notion of downward causation that I will consider are: the claim that this involves a whole acting downward on its parts which is an objectionable idea because wholes and parts are not sufficiently distinct to stand in causal relationships, that downward causation commits us to the existence of causal cycles in which X causes Y which in turn causes X and that the asymmetric nature of the causal relation rules out such cycles, and causal exclusion type worries, according to which all of the causal action occurs among “low level” variables, so that upper level variables are deprived of causal efficacy. In response I will argue that plausible examples of downward causation in the scientific literature do not involve whole to part causation, there is nothing wrong with causal cycles, which are common in, for example, biological contexts, exclusion type worries do not arise within the interventionist framework that I favor. (shrink)

My concern here is with the Humean claim that no purely cognitive state could, in combination with appropriate other beliefs, but with nothing else, originate a process of rational motivation. The starting point of such motivation must always include some other element: a desire. Let's call this claim, following David McNaughton the belief-desire theory, or BDT for short. The theory is widely believed but intensely controversial. I argue here that it is true.

A dispute in the form of rival interpretations of Carneades arose in the New Academy about whether the wise person is permitted to form opinions. One party rejected opinion; the other defended it. Because the terms enjoy a certain currency, the positions are here labelled ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ respectively. This essay tackles the question whether and how they differed. It argues that the disagreement was less about human epistemic capacities than about the standards and aspirations against which they should be (...) measured and that Cicero, our principal source, was a consistent adherent of the ‘radical’ party. (shrink)

A series of topical philosophy studies aiming to publish original essays by foremost thinkers in their fields, with each volume confined to a main area of philosophical research.

Humility has not always been regarded as a virtue. Aristotle, if he recognized it at all, seems to have regarded it as a vice, a deficiency in regard to magnanimity. In the popular culture of the twenty-first century, while courage is held in high moral esteem, the regard given to humility is more questionable. Humility, however, is not universally dismissed as a virtue. Many see it as having moral value. In fact, a number of contemporary philosophers are relatively clear that (...) humility is a morally valuable trait and so is a moral virtue, although they disagree about its character. For traditional Christianity and Judaism, of course, and for other religious traditions, humility is a religious virtue. However, if humility is a religious virtue, is it different from humility as a moral virtue? Below, we shall start in section II with the question, What is the best way to understand the general notion of humility? In section III it shall be followed by the question, What are the core contrasting states that humility opposes? Third , in section IV we shall ask, Does humility as a religious virtue have a distinctive and abiding character? (shrink)

Background -- The moral manualists -- Initiating reform : Odon Lottin -- Retrieving Scripture and charity : Fritz Tillman and Gérard Gilleman -- Synthesis : Bernard Häring -- The neo-manualists -- New foundations for moral reasoning, 1970-89 -- New foundations for a theological anthropology, 1980-2000 -- Toward a global discourse on suffering and solidarity -- Afterword: The encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI.

The present dilemma in philosophy -- What pragmatism means -- Some metaphysical problems pragmatically considered -- The one and the many -- Pragmatism and common sense -- Pragmatism's conception of truth -- Pragmatism and humanism -- Pragmatism and religion.

Here is a sketch of a genealogy of political theory for the last century. This is a genealogy in Nietzsche’s sense: therefore, neither unhistorical taxonomy, nor a history of political theory as it is written by historians, but a typology in time. Four types of modern political theory are distinguished. These are called, with some justification, positive, normative, third way and sceptical political theory. Seen from the vantage of the twenty-first century, they form an instructive sequence, emerging as a series (...) of reactions to the canonical political theory that was established in the universities in the late nineteenth century. None of the four should be excluded from our conception of what political theory has been, though most of them, when seen genealogically, reveal their defects more clearly than they do when treated purely theoretically. Since this is a sceptical finding, the genealogy is a polemic against the first three types of modern political theory in favour of the last. (shrink)

Historians and philosophers of science agree that Darwin had an understanding of species which led to a workable theory of their origins. To Darwin species did not differ essentially from ‘varieties’ within species, but were distinguishable in that they had developed gaps in formerly continuous morphological variation. Similar ideas can be defended today after updating them with modern population genetics. Why then, in the 1930s and 1940s, did Dobzhansky, Mayr and others argue that Darwin failed to understand species and speciation? (...) Mayr and Dobzhansky argued that reproductively isolated species were more distinct and ‘real’ than Darwin had proposed. Believing species to be inherently cohesive, Mayr inferred that speciation normally required geographic isolation, an argument that he believed, incorrectly, Darwin had failed to appreciate. Also, before the sociobiology revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, biologists often argued that traits beneficial to whole populations would spread. Reproductive isolation was thus seen as an adaptive trait to prevent disintegration of species. Finally, molecular genetic markers did not exist, and so a presumed biological function of species, reproductive isolation, seemed to delimit cryptic species better than character-based criteria like Darwin’s. Today, abundant genetic markers are available and widely used to delimit species, for example using assignment tests: genetics has replaced a Darwinian reliance on morphology for detecting gaps between species. In the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species , we appear to be returning to more Darwinian views on species, and to a fuller appreciation of what Darwin meant. (shrink)

"The discovery of the law of Evolution in the material world has prepared men for a knowledge of the law of cause and effect in the mental world.... In the realm of thought and deed, the good survives, for it is ''fittest;'' the evil ultimately perishes. To know that the ''perfect law'' of Causation is as all-embracing in mind as in matter, is to be relieved from all anxiety concerning the ultimate destiny of individuals and of humanity-''For man is man (...) and master of his fate'' and the will in man which is conquering the knowledge of natural law will conquer the knowledge of spiritual law.... In this volume I have tried to set down some words indicative of this Law and this Destiny, and the manner of its working and its building." - JAMES ALLEN - A Complete and Unabridged edition of James Allen''s book The Mastery of Destiny. Part of The Works of James Allen Series. Other Books by James Allen:- Above Life''s Turmoil All These Things Added As a Man Thinketh Byways of Blessedness Entering the Kingdom (Part of- "All These Things Added") Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success From Passion to Peace From Poverty to Power James Allen''s Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year Light on Life''s Difficulties Man: King of Mind, Body and Circumstance Men and Systems Morning and Evening Thoughts Out from the Heart (Sequel to "As a Man Thinketh") Poems of Peace The Divine Companion The Eight Pillars of Prosperity The Heavenly Life (Part of-"All These Things Added") The Life Triumphant The Path to Prosperity (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") The Shining Gateway The Way of Peace (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") Through the Gate of Good. (shrink)

Reply in Book Symposium on James Ladyman, Don Ross: 'Everything must go: metaphysics naturalized', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

The eighteenth century is still the bottleneck of the history of political theory: the century that separates pre-economic theorists such as Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes from post-economic theorists such as Hegel, Mill and Marx. Political thinking became immeasurably much more complicated in the eighteenth century: and yet historians, after at least half a century of extremely judicious scholarship, still have difficulty explaining its significance for contemporary theory. Sagar's Adam Smith Reconsidered is an important contribution to the attempt to clarify just (...) how modern political theorists should look backward – without hastening back to the abstractions of the seventeenth century or remaining confined to particular involutions of the nineteenth century. Its specific originality is in drawing attention to two important ideas of Adam Smith, seldom seen clearly or at all, ‘the quirk of rationality’ and ‘the conspiracy of merchants’. Political theorists as well as historians of political thought will benefit from familiarising themselves with these ideas. (shrink)

In his recent book, Causation: A Realistic Approach , Michael Tooley discusses the following thesis, which he calls the ‘thesis of the Humean Supervenience of Causal Relations’: The truth values of all singular causal statements are logically determined by the truth values of statements of causal laws, together with the truth values of non-causal statements about particulars . represents one version of the ‘Humean’ idea that there is no more factual content to the claim that two particular events are causally (...) connected than that they occur, instantiate some law or regularity, and perhaps bear some appropriate non-causal to each other. This is an idea that is tacitly or explicitly assumed in most familiar accounts of singular causal statements. For example is assumed by many probabilistic theories of singular causal statements, by theories which attempt to analyse singular causal statements in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, and, as I shall argue below, by David Lewis' counterfactual theory. (shrink)

Book synopsis: Since its publication in 1677, Spinoza’s Ethics has fascinated philosophers, novelists, and scientists alike. It is undoubtedly one of the most exciting and contested works of Western philosophy. Written in an austere, geometrical fashion, the work teaches us how we should live, ending with an ethics in which the only thing good in itself is understanding. Spinoza argues that only that which hinders us from understanding is bad and shows that those endowed with a human mind should devote (...) themselves, as much as they can, to a contemplative life. This Companion volume provides a detailed, accessible exposition of the Ethics. Written by an internationally known team of scholars, it is the first anthology to treat the whole of the Ethics and is written in an accessible style. (shrink)

This paper sets out a series of critical contrasts between Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze's philosophies of the event. It does so in the context of some likely objections to their positions from a broadly analytic position. These objections concern problems of individuation and location in space-time. The paper also explains Deleuze and Badiou's views on the event through a literary application on a short story by John Cheever. In conclusion it is argued that both thinkers have good answers to (...) the objections, but that they diverge on the ontological commitments of their definitions of the event. (shrink)

A PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY FOR WAR TIME BY THE AUTHOR OF STREAMLINE YOUR MIND A Personal Philosophy for War Time JAMES L. MURSELL Professor of Education Teachers ...

Many philosophers claim that metaphor is indispensable for various purposes. What I shall call the ‘Indispensability Thesis’ is the view that we use at least some metaphors to think, to express, to communicate, or to discover what cannot be thought, expressed, communicated, or discovered without metaphor. I argue in this paper that support for the Indispensability Thesis is based on several confusions. I criticize arguments presented by Stephen Yablo, Berys Gaut, Richard Boyd, and Elisabeth Camp for the Indispensability Thesis, and (...) distinguish it from several plausible claims with which it is easily confused. Although I do not show that the thesis is false, I provide seven grounds for suspicion of our sense (if we have it) that some metaphors are indispensable for the purposes claimed by advocates of the Indispensability Thesis. (shrink)

When does a person qualify for protected and continuing life? At a time when technology can sustain marginal life, it is ever more important to understand what constitutes a person.

A bewildering array of accounts of the ontology of musical works is available. Philosophers have held that works of music are sets of performances, abstract, eternal sound-event types, initiated types, compositional action types, compositional action tokens, ideas in a composer’s mind and continuants that perdure. This paper maintains that questions in the ontology of music are, in Rudolf Carnap’s sense of the term, pseudo-problems. That is, there is no alethic basis for choosing between rival musical ontologies. While we have no (...) alethic basis for choosing any ontology of music, pragmatic reasons can be given for favoring certain ontologies of musical works over others. (shrink)

Originally published in in 1893, this book contains the text of the Socratic dialogue Protagoras, which discusses a variety of Sophistic and Socratic tenets, including the teachability of virtue. The dialogue also provides an interesting view on the connection between pederasty and education in ancient Athens. Notable Plato scholars James and Adele Adams present an introduction addressing the purpose and themes of the dialogue; a biography of Protagoras and extant fragments of his works are also included. This book will (...) be of value to anyone with an interest in the Platonic, Socratic or Sophistic philosophies. (shrink)

"We reap as we sow. Those things which come to us, though not by our own choosing, are by our causing." JAMES ALLEN A Complete and Unabridged edition of James Allen's book "Foundation Stones to Happiness and Success." Part of The Works of James Allen Series. Other works by James Allen include:- Above Life's Turmoil All These Things Added As a Man Thinketh Byways of Blessedness Entering the Kingdom (Part of- "All These Things Added") From Passion (...) to Peace From Poverty to Power James Allen's Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year Light on Life's Difficulties Man: King of Mind, Body and Circumstance Men and Systems Morning and Evening Thoughts Out from the Heart (Sequel to "As a Man Thinketh") Poems of Peace The Divine Companion The Eight Pillars of Prosperity The Heavenly Life (Part of-"All These Things Added") The Life Triumphant The Mastery of Destiny The Path to Prosperity (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") The Shining Gateway The Way of Peace (Part of-"From Poverty to Power") Through the Gate of Good. (shrink)

Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, statesman and jurist, is best known for developing the empiricist method which forms the basis of modern science. Bacon's writings concentrated on philosophy and judicial reform. His most significant work is the Instauratio Magna comprising two parts - The Advancement of Learning and the Novum Organum. The first part is noteworthy as the first major philosophical work published in English. James Spedding and his co-editors arranged this fourteen-volume edition, published in London between 1857 and (...) 1874, not in chronological order but by subject matter, so that different volumes would appeal to different audiences. The material is divided into three parts: philosophy and general literature; legal works; and letters, speeches and tracts relating to politics. Volume 9, published in 1862, contains letters and political writings from 1595 to 1601, including papers relating to the treason trial of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that if Kantian and consequentialist ethical theories are vulnerable to the so-called “problem of alienation,” a virtue ethics based on Xunzi’s ethical writings will also be vulnerable to this problem. I outline the problem of alienation, and then show that the role of ritual ( li ) in Xunzi’s theory renders his view susceptible to the problem as it has been traditionally understood. I consider some replies on Xunzi’s behalf, and also discuss whether the problem (...) affects other Confucian and eudaimonian approaches to virtue ethics. I close by considering some solutions to the problem and the affect that this result has on the argumentative dialectic between the three major ethical traditions. (shrink)

In this work the theories of Marx and Laozi are dialectically combined. The resulting synthesis is a positive materialist negation of Hegel’s idealist dialectics. Syntheses are presented for Marx and Laozi in ontology, metaphysics, epistemology, scientific method, ethics and politics: the full spectrum of their foundational principles. The book is an attempt to reconstruct a materialist interpretation of Laozi, which can be put to work for Marxist theory.