“The Routledge [series] is designed to introduce students to classic works of philosophy. Brian Leiter’s Nietzsche on Morality does that, and much more. The book offers a complete commentary of On the Genealogy of Morality, but it also articulates a comprehensive and original interpretation of Nietzsche’s critique of morality. The product is an exceptionally clear and cohesive account of philosophical views known neither for their clarity nor their cohesiveness…. “The distinction, and the chief merit, of Leiter’s account is its emphasis (...) on the naturalism of Nietzsche’s approach to morality. Leiter may not quite be the first to portray Nietzsche as a naturalist, but his characterization of Nietzschean naturalism in connection with morality is the most systematic and compelling to date…. “In general, the book offers one of the most comprehensive and compelling interpretations of Nietzsche’s critique of morality…. With its distinctive emphasis on naturalistic themes, it forms a very significant contribution to the study of Nietzsche and is poised to become a work of reference in the field. Indeed, even the criticisms I have raised about this interpretation owe much to the exceptional clarity and cogency with which it is articulated.” --Bernard Reginster (Brown University), writing in Notre Dame Philosophical Review, January 2, 2003 (http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2003/1/reginster-leiter.html). (shrink)

Brian Leiter draws on empirical psychology to defend a set of radical ideas from Nietzsche: there is no objectively true morality, there is no free will, no one is ever morally responsible, and our conscious thoughts play almost no significant role in our actions. Nietzsche emerges as not just a great philosopher but a prescient psychologist.

This article sketches an idealized strategy for the identification of neural correlates of consciousness. The proposed strategy is based on a state space approach originating from the analysis of dynamical systems. The article then focuses on one constituent of consciousness, phenomenal awareness. Several rudimentary requirements for the identification of neural correlates of phenomenal awareness are suggested. These requirements are related to empirical data on selective attention, on completely intrinsic selection and on globally unconscious states. As an example, neuroscientific findings on (...) synchronized γ activity are categorized according to these requirements. (shrink)

"--Christopher L. Eisgruber, Princeton University "This is a provocative and bracing essay, one that is bound to stimulate much discussion.

I am grateful to Alan Madry and Joel Richeimer for their intelligent and stimulating critique of my article “Heidegger and the Theory of Adjudication.” It is the most interesting commentary I have seen on the paper, and I have learned much from it. It may facilitate discussion, and advance debate, to state with some clarity where exactly we agree and disagree. I leave to the footnotes discussion of certain minor points where Madry and Richeimer are guilty of some critical overreaching.

In teaching jurisprudence, I typically distinguish between two different families of theories of adjudication—theories of how judges do or should decide cases. “Formalist” theories claim that the law is “rationally” determinate, that is, the class of legitimate legal reasons available for a judge to offer in support of his or her decision justifies one and only one outcome either in all cases or in some significant and contested range of cases ; and adjudication is thus “autonomous” from other kinds of (...) reasoning, that is, the judge can reach the required decision without recourse to nonlegal normative considerations of morality or political philosophy. I also note that “formalism” is sometimes associated with the idea that judicial decision-making involves nothing more than mechanical deduction on the model of the syllogism—Beccaria, for example, expresses such a view. I call the latter “Vulgar Formalism” to emphasize that it is not a view to which anyone today cares to subscribe. (shrink)

Both an introduction to Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, and a sustained commentary on his most famous work, On the Genealogy of Morality, this book has become the most widely used and debated secondary source on these topics over the past dozen years. Many of Nietzsche’s most famous ideas - the "slave revolt" in morals, the attack on free will, perspectivism, "will to power" and the "ascetic ideal" - are clearly analyzed and explained. The first edition established the centrality of naturalism to (...) Nietzsche’s philosophy, generating a substantial scholarly literature to which Leiter responds in an important new Postscript. In addition, Leiter has revised and refreshed the book throughout, taking into account new scholarly literature, and revising or clarifying his treatment of such topics as the objectivity of value, epiphenomenalism and consciousness, and the possibility of "autonomous" agency. (shrink)

Philosophical discussions on causal inference in medicine are stuck in dyadic camps, each defending one kind of evidence or method rather than another as best support for causal hypotheses. Whereas Evidence Based Medicine advocates the use of Randomised Controlled Trials and systematic reviews of RCTs as gold standard, philosophers of science emphasise the importance of mechanisms and their distinctive informational contribution to causal inference and assessment. Some have suggested the adoption of a pluralistic approach to causal inference, and an inductive (...) rather than hypothetico-deductive inferential paradigm. However, these proposals deliver no clear guidelines about how such plurality of evidence sources should jointly justify hypotheses of causal associations. We here develop such guidelines by first giving a philosophical analysis of the underpinnings of Hill’s viewpoints on causality. We then put forward an evidence-amalgamation framework adopting a Bayesian net approach to model causal inference in pharmacology for the assessment of harms. Our framework accommodates a number of intuitions already expressed in the literature concerning the EBM vs. pluralist debate on causal inference, evidence hierarchies, causal holism, relevance, and reliability. (shrink)

Nietzsche famously proclaimed the “death of God,” but in so doing it was not God’s death that was really notable—Nietzsche assumes that most reflective, modern readers realize that “the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable” —but the implications of that belief becoming unbelievable, namely, “how much must collapse now that this faith has been undermined,” in particular, “the whole of our European morality”. What is the connection between the death of God and the death of morality? I argue (...) that Nietzsche thinks the death of God will undermine the “moral egalitarianism” that is central to modern morality, in both its deontological and utilitarian forms. I offer an account of how Nietzsche sees the connection, arguing that no one has yet offered a nontheistic defense of moral egalitarianism. I conclude with some skeptical considerations about whether Nietzsche was right that atheism would, in fact, undermine morality. (shrink)

Legal philosophers have been preoccupied with specifying the differences between two systems of normative guidance that are omnipresent in all modern human societies: law and morality. Positivists propose a solution to this ‘Demarcation Problem’ according to which the legal validity of a norm cannot depend on its being morally valid, either in all or at least some possible legal systems. The proposed analysis purports to specify the essential and necessary features of law in virtue of which this is true. Yet, (...) the concept of law is an ‘artefact concept’, that is, a concept that picks out a phenomenon that necessarily owes its existence to human activities intended to create it. Artefact concepts, even simple ones like ‘chair’, are notoriously resistant to analyses in terms of their essential attributes, precisely because they are hostages to human ends and purposes, and also cannot be individuated by their natural properties. Twentieth-century philosophy of science dealt with a kindred Demarcation Problem: how to demarcate epistemically reliable forms of inquiry from epistemically unreliable ones, that is, how to demarcate science from pseudo-science or nonsense. Like the legal philosophers, they sought to identify the essential properties of a human artefact (namely, science). They failed, and spectacularly so, which led some philosophers to wonder, ‘Why does solving the Demarcation Problem matter?’ This essay develops the lessons for legal philosophy from this episode and its philosophical aftermath, and concludes that, in order not to become embroiled in pointless Fullerian speculations about the effects of jurisprudential doctrines on behaviour, we should abandon the Demarcation Problem in jurisprudence. (shrink)

The latest volume in the Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, this work brings together some of the best and most influential recent philosophical scholarship on Nietzsche. Opening with a substantial introduction by John Richardson, it covers: Nietzsche's views on truth and knowledge, his 'doctrines' of the eternal recurrence and will to power, his distinction between Apollinian and Dionysian art, his critique of morality, his conceptions of agency and self-creation, and his genealogical method. For each of these issues, the papers show (...) Nietzsche's continuing philosophical importance. Giving a clear and accessible overview, while retaining an analytical philosophical approach throughout, this volume is essential reading for all students of Nietzsche. (shrink)

As digital media becomes more central to the lives of adolescents, it also becomes increasingly relevant for their sexual communication. Sexting as an important image-based digital medium provides opportunities for self-determined digital communication, but also carries specific risks for boundary violations. Accordingly, sexting is understood either as an everyday, or as risky and deviant behavior among adolescents. In the affectedness of boundary violations gender plays an important role. However, it is still unclear to what extent digital sexual communication restores stereotypical (...) gender roles and restrictive sexuality norms or, alternatively, enables new spaces of possibility. In this sense, current research points to a desideratum regarding adolescents’ orientations toward sexting as a practice between spaces of possibility and boundary violations. This paper discusses the possibilities, but also the risks, of intimate digital communication among adolescents. The main question is, how adolescents themselves perceive sexting practices and how they position themselves between both spaces for possibility and for the exchange of unwanted sexual content. For this purpose, orientations toward normalities and gender of students are reconstructed. To answer these questions, twelve single-sex, group discussions were carried out with students aged 16 and 17 at five different secondary schools in northern Germany. A total of 20 boys and 22 girls took part. The group discussions were structured by a narrative generating guideline. The analysis draws its methodology from the Documentary Method, regarding implicit and explicit forms of knowledge and discourse. It results in a typology of three types with different orientations. The study shows, that most of the students consider sexting to be a risky practice; only one type shows normality in the use of sexting. At the same time, some of the young people are interested in experimenting with image-based intimate digital communication. Further, gender differences in use and affectedness are also documented. In this way, orientations toward gender stereotypes “favor” both the attribution of responsibility to girls, and overlook the responsibility of students who perpetrated the boundary violation. The orientations of adolescents should be taken more into account in research as well as in educational programs for the prevention of sexual violence. (shrink)

In this essay, we aim to provide an overview of the periodic table’s origins and history, and of the elements which conspired to make it chemistry’s most recognisable icon. We pay attention to Mendeleev’s role in the development of a system for organising the elements and chemical knowledge while facilitating the teaching of chemistry. We look at how the reception of the table in different chemical communities was dependent on the local scientific, cultural and political context, but argue that its (...) eventual universal acceptance is due to its unique ability to accommodate possessed knowledge while enabling novel predictions. Furthermore, we argue that its capacity to unify apparently disconnected phenomena under a simple framework facilitates our understanding of periodicity, making the table an icon of aesthetic value, and an object of philosophical inquiry. Finally, we briefly explore the table’s iconicity throughout its representations in pop art and science fiction. (shrink)

This essay offers an interpretation and partial defense of Nietzsche's idea that moralities and moral judgments are “sign-languages” or “symptoms” of our affects, that is, of our emotions or feelings. According to Nietzsche, as I reconstruct his view, moral judgments result from the interaction of two kinds of affective responses: first, a “basic affect” of inclination toward or aversion from certain acts, and then a further affective response to that basic affect. I argue that Nietzsche views basic affects asnoncognitive, that (...) is, as identifiable solely by how they feel to the subject who experiences the affect. By contrast, I suggest that meta-affects sometimes incorporate acognitivecomponent like belief. After showing how this account of moral judgment comports with a reading of Nietzsche's moral philosophy that I have offered in previous work, I conclude by adducing philosophical and empirical psychological reasons for thinking that Nietzsche's account of moral judgment is correct. (shrink)

Introduction: From legal realism to naturalized jurisprudence -- A note on legal indeterminacy -- Part I. American legal realism and its critics -- Rethinking legal realism: toward a naturalized jurisprudence (1997) -- Legal realism and legal positivism reconsidered (2001) -- Is there an "American" jurisprudence? (1997) -- Postscript to Part I: Interpreting legal realism -- Part II. Ways of naturalizing jurisprudence -- Legal realism, hard positivism, and the limits of conceptual analysis (1998, 2001) -- Why Quine is not a postmodernist (...) (1997) -- Beyond the Hart/Dworkin debate: the methodology problem in jurisprudence (2003) -- Part III. Naturalism, morality, and objectivity -- Moral facts and best explanations (2001) -- Objectivity, morality, and adjudication (2001) -- Law and objectivity (2002). (shrink)

According to the objective Bayesian approach to inductive logic, premisses inductively entail a conclusion just when every probability function with maximal entropy, from all those that satisfy the premisses, satisfies the conclusion. When premisses and conclusion are constraints on probabilities of sentences of a first-order predicate language, however, it is by no means obvious how to determine these maximal entropy functions. This paper makes progress on the problem in the following ways. Firstly, we introduce the concept of a limit in (...) entropy and show that, if the set of probability functions satisfying the premisses contains a limit in entropy, then this limit point is unique and is the maximal entropy probability function. Next, we turn to the special case in which the premisses are categorical sentences of the logical language. We show that if the uniform probability function gives the premisses positive probability, then the maximal entropy function can be found by simply conditionalising this uniform prior on the premisses. We generalise our results to demonstrate agreement between the maximal entropy approach and Jeffrey conditionalisation in the case in which there is a single premiss that specifies the probability of a sentence of the language. We show that, after learning such a premiss, certain inferences are preserved, namely inferences to inductive tautologies. Finally, we consider potential pathologies of the approach: we explore the extent to which the maximal entropy approach is invariant under permutations of the constants of the language, and we discuss some cases in which there is no maximal entropy probability function. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI offer an interpretation of Nietzsche's striking idea of ‘the innocence of becoming’, and a partial defense of its import, namely, that no one is ever morally responsible or guilty for what they do and that many of the so-called reactive attitudes are misplaced. I focus primarily, though not exclusively, on the arguments as set out in Twilight of the Idols. First, there is Nietzsche's hypothesis, partly psychological and partly historical or anthropological, that the ideas of ‘free’ action or free (...) will, and of responsibility for actions freely chosen or willed, were introduced primarily in order to justify punishment. Call this the Genetic Thesis about Free Will. Second, there is Nietzsche's claim that the moral psychology, or ‘psychology of the will” as he calls it, that underlies this picture is, in fact, false – that, in fact, it is not true that every action is willed or that it reflects a purpose or that it originates in consciousness. Call these, in aggregate, the Descriptive Thesis about the Will. Finally, there is articulation of a programmatic agenda, namely, to restore the ‘innocence of becoming’ by getting rid of guilt and punishment based on guilt – not primarily because ascriptions of guilt and responsibility are false, but because a world understood as ‘innocent’, one understood in terms of ‘natural’ cause and effect, is a better world in which to live. I focus in particular on a reactive attitude often ignored by philosophers, but of crucial importance for Nietzsche, namely, revenge. I aim to explain and defend Zarathustra's recommendation: ‘Enemy’ you shall say, but not villain; sick you shall say, but not scoundrel; fool you shall say, but not ‘sinner.’ Nietzsche's views are contrasted with those of important modern writers on these topics, especially P.F. Strawson and Derk Pereboom. (shrink)

Where does philosophy, the oldest academic subject, stand at the beginning of the new millennium? This remarkable volume brings together leading figures from most major branches of the discipline to offer answers. What remains of the "linguistic turn" in twentieth-century philosophy? How should moral philosophy respond to and incorporate developments in empirical psychology? Where might Continental and Anglophone feminist theory profitably interact? How has our understanding of ancient philosophy been affected by the emergence of analytic philosophy? Where does the mind-body (...) problem stand today? What role must value judgments play in science? Do Marx, Nietzsche, or Freud matter in the 21st century? These and many other questions at the cutting edge of the discipline are addressed by distinguished philosophers from Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States. They aim not only to stimulate philosophical debate, but to introduce those in cognate disciplines--biology, classics, economics, history, law, linguistics, literary studies, mathematics, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, among others--to what is happening in contemporary philosophy. In a substantial introduction, the editor gives an overview of the state of philosophy today and helps orient non-philosophers. List of Contributors Julia Annas: Ancient Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century Don Garrett: Philosophy and History in the History of Modern Philosophy Brian Leiter: The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud Timothy Williamson: Past the Linguistic Turn? Jaegwon Kim: The Mind-Body Problem at Century's Turn David J. Chalmers: The Representational Character of Experience Alvin I. Goldman: The Need for Social Epistemology Philip Kitcher: The Ends of the Sciences Nancy Cartwright: From Causation to Explanation and Back Thomas Hurka: Normative Ethics: Back to the Future Peter Railton: Toward an Ethics that Inhabits the World Rae Langton: Projection and Objectification Philip Pettit: Existentialism, Quietism, and the Role of Philosophy. (shrink)

The “terrible” existential truths about the human situation raise Schopenhauer's question: why continue living at all? Nietzsche's answer is that only viewed in terms of aesthetic values can life itself be “justified”. But how could the fact that life exemplifies aesthetic value restore our attachment to life in the face of these terrible existential truths? I suggest that there are two keys to understanding Nietzsche's answer: first, his assimilation of aesthetic pleasure to a kind of sublimated sexual pleasure; and second, (...) his psychological thesis that powerful affects neutralize pain, and thus can “seduce” the sufferer back to life. Life can supply the requisite kind of aesthetic pleasure only if it features what I call the “spectacle of genius,” the spectacle represented by the likes of Beethoven, Goethe, and Napoleon. Since such geniuses are not possible in a culture dominated by “morality”, the critique of morality is essential to the restoration of an affective attachment to life. (shrink)

This chapter offers a new interpretation of Nietzsche’s argument for moral skepticism, an argument that should be of independent philosophical interest as well. On this account, Nietzsche offers a version of the argument from moral disagreement, but, unlike familiar varieties, it does not purport to exploit anthropological reports about the moral views of exotic cultures, or even garden-variety conflicting moral intuitions about concrete cases. Nietzsche, instead, calls attention to the single most important and embarrassing fact about the history of moral (...) theorizing by philosophers over two millennia: namely, that no rational consensus has been secured on any substantive, foundational proposition about morality. Persistent and apparently intractable disagreement on foundational questions, of course, distinguishes moral theory from inquiry in the sciences and mathematics. According to Nietzsche, the best explanation for this disagreement is that, even though moral skepticism is true, philosophers can still construct valid dialectical justifications for moral claims because the premises of different justifications will answer to the psychological needs of at least some philosophers and thus be deemed true by some of them. The chapter concludes by considering various attempts to defuse this abductive argument for scepticism. (shrink)

Marx did not have a normative theory, that is, a theory that purported to justify, discursively and systematically, his normative opinions, to show them to be rationally obligatory or objectively valid. In this regard, Marx was obviously not alone: almost everyone, including those who lead what are widely regarded as exemplary ‘moral’ lives, decide and act on the basis of normative intuitions and inclinations that fall far short of a theory. Yet self-proclaimed Marxists like G. A. Cohen and Jurgen Habermas (...) have reintroduced a kind of normative theory into the Marxian tradition that Marx himself would have ridiculed. This essay defends Marx’s position and tries to explain the collapse of Western Marxism into bourgeois practical philosophy, i.e., philosophizing about what ought to be done that is unthreatening to capitalist relations of production. (shrink)

Nietzsche is one of the most important and controversial thinkers in the history of philosophy. His writings on moral philosophy are amongst the most widely read works, both by philosophers and non-philosophers. Many of the ideas raised are both startling and disturbing, and have been the source of great contention. On the Genealogy of Morality is Nietzsche's most sustained and important contribution to moral philosophy, featuring many of the ideas for which he is best known, including the slave revolt in (...) morals; will to power; genealogy; and perspectivism. The Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Nietzsche on Morality introduces the reader to these and other important Nietzschean themes patiently and clearly. It is the first book to examine the work in such a way, and will be a vital point of reference for any Nietzsche scholar, and essential reading for students coming to Nietzsche for the first time. (shrink)

Shapiro has recently argued that Dworkin posed a new objection to legal positivism in Law's Empire, to which positivists, he says, have not adequately responded. Positivists, the objection goes, have no satisfactory account of what Dworkin calls “theoretical disagreement” about law, that is, disagreement about “the grounds of law” or what positivists would call the criteria of legal validity. I agree with Shapiro that the critique is new, and disagree that it has not been met. Positivism can not offer an (...) explanation that preserves the “face value” of theoretical disagreements, because the only intelligible dispute about the criteria of legal validity is an empirical or “head count” dispute, i.e., a dispute about what judges are doing, and how many of them are doing it. Positivism, however, has two other explanations for theoretical disagreement, which “explain away” rather than preserve the “face value” disagreement. According to positivists, either theoretical disagreements are disingenuous, in the sense that the parties, consciously or unconsciously, are really trying to change the law, that is, they are trying to say, as Dworkin puts it, “what it should be” not “what the law is”; or they are simply in error, that is, they honestly think there is a fact of the matter about what the grounds of law are, and thus what the law is, in the context of their disagreement, but they are mistaken, because, in truth, there is no fact of the matter about the grounds of law in this instance precisely because there is no convergent practice of behavior among officials constituting a Rule of Recognition on this point. The “Disingenuity” and “Error Theory” accounts of theoretical disagreement are explored, with attention to the theoretical desiderata at stake in choosing between competing explanatory theories. Particular attention is given to the best explanation for Riggs v. Palmer in light of the actual historical context of the decision and other opinions by the Riggs judges in contemporaneous cases. (shrink)

BRIAN LEITER; Is There An ‘American’ Jurisprudence?, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Volume 17, Issue 2, 1 July 1997, Pages 367–387, https://doi.org/10.1093/oj.

General jurisprudence-that branch of legal philosophy concerned with the nature of law and adjudication-has been relatively unaffected by the "naturalistic" strains so evident, for example, in the epistemology, philosophy of mind and moral philosophy of the past forty years. This paper sketches three ways in which naturalism might affect jurisprudential inquiry. The paper serves as a kind of precis of the main themes in my book NATURALIZING JURISPRUDENCE: ESSAYS ON AMERICAN LEGAL REALISM AND NATURALISM IN LEGAL PHILOSOPHY (Oxford University Press, (...) 2007). (shrink)

We study questionnaire responses to situations in which sacrificing one life may save many other lives. We demonstrate gender differences in moral judgments: males are more supportive of the sacrifice than females. We investigate a source of the endorsement of the sacrifice: antisocial preferences. First, we measure individual proneness to spiteful behavior, using an experimental game with monetary stakes. We demonstrate that spitefulness can be sizable—a fifth of our participants behave spitefully—but it is not associated with gender. Second, we find (...) that gender is consistently associated with responses even when we account for individual differences in the propensity to spitefulness. (shrink)

Epistemic scoring rules are the en vogue tool for justifications of the probability norm and further norms of rational belief formation. They are different in kind and application from statistical scoring rules from which they arose. In the first part of the paper I argue that statistical scoring rules, properly understood, are in principle better suited to justify the probability norm than their epistemic brethren. Furthermore, I give a justification of the probability norm applying statistical scoring rules. In the second (...) part of the paper I give a variety of justifications of norms for rational belief formation employing statistical scoring rules. Furthermore, general properties of statistical scoring rules are investigated. Epistemic scoring rules feature as a useful technical tool for constructing statistical scoring rules. (shrink)