I offer a response to the explanatory challenge, 'Why is time Markovian?' (i.e., why is it that the future is constrained by the present just as strictly as it is constrained by the entire history of the universe up to and including the present?). My response to this explanatory challenge does not rely on any claims about the ontology of time, undermining a recent empirical argument for Presentism which appeals to the fact that Presentism can be used to address this (...) explanatory challenge. My account shows that we can accept explanatory challenges of this sort, while denying that they lead to any strong metaphysical conclusions. (shrink)

This line has long been a crux in the interpretation of Pindar, and there is still no consensus on its syntax or meaning. The conclusions reached by Stefan Radt , 148–74) and Richard Stoneman , 65–70) in the most recent studies of the problem are in all respects at variance. The cardinal difficulty of0 the line is the sense of , which must be elucidated before one can attempt to disentangle the syntax. I believe that previous commentators have overlooked or (...) misapplied crucial parallel passages because of their preconceptions about the nature of the metaphor here. (shrink)

The concept of respect for persons is often rejected as a basis for understanding forgiveness. As many have argued, to hold your offender responsible for her actions is to respect her as a person; but this kind of respect is more likely to sustain, rather than dissolve, your resentment toward her (Garrard & McNaughton 2003; 2011; Allais 2008). I seek to defend an alternative view in this paper. To forgive, on my account, involves ceasing to identify your offender with her (...) wrongdoing, and this requires a corresponding affective change on your behalf. While there are different ways this may happen, I argue that respect for your offender as a person can play a significant role in the process. (shrink)

It is commonly held that since non-human animals are not persons, they are not objects of due regard and care in the same way that humans are. But how might we begin to think about recognizing animals as persons? This chapter attempts to reconstruct an answer by drawing on the resources of the Pātañjalayogaśāstra (the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, 200-400 CE). Animals are persons from the perspective of this tradition, and so animals are proper objects of due regard and care. (...) According to classical Yoga philosophy, however, this form of recognition is not easy to attain. The discerning insight that allows one to “see” the personhood of other living beings requires a discipline of attention, one that constitutes the practice of yoga itself. (shrink)

A 60-minute show written and performed by Lauren Ware. Venue: New Town Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Date: Monday, 7th August 2017. Description: Two people are imprisoned for identical crimes. One finds prison life merely unpleasant, the other lives in constant fear adn distress. Have they been punished equally? Drawing on the philosophy of emotion and the impact of imprisonment on offenders and their families, this interactive show asks the audience to consider if punishment must hurt, who can be made to (...) suffer, and why. (shrink)

This paper offers a new interpretation of Kant's relationship with skepticism in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. My position differs from commonly held views in the literature in two ways. On the one hand, I argue that Kant's relationship with skepticism is active and systematic (contrary to Hill, Wood, Rawls, Timmermann, and Allison). On the other hand, I argue that the kind of skepticism Kant is interested in does not speak to the philosophical tradition in any straightforward sense (...) (contrary to Forster and Guyer). On my reading, Kant takes up a skeptical method in the Groundwork as a way of exposing certain obstacles in our ordinary and philosophical thinking about morality. The central obstacle he is interested in is practical in character, arising from a natural tendency we have to rationalize against the moral law. In attempting to resolve this tendency, I argue, the Groundwork turns out to have a profoundly educative task. (shrink)

This conceptual paper considers the practice implications of assisted dying for contemporary nursing practice within the United Kingdom in response to the publication of a parliamentary report leading to a private members’ bill that will form the basis of a debate and possible change in legislation. A recurring theme within the nursing research is how nurses should respond to patients expressing an interest or making a request for assisted dying. This paper explores contemporary evidence and argues that the procedure of (...) assisted dying is a complex (manifold) and puzzling (paradoxical) practice. The UK nursing profession may replicate recent healthcare catastrophes if the response to a proposal for assisted dying is based on a technical-rational stance, or if nurses merely coalesce around a single determinant such as patient autonomy. The paper presents two nursing communicative interventions that seek to address how to respond to a patient request for an assisted death that foregrounds the preferences and personhood of the patient whilst providing opportunities for enquiry-based approaches to enhance nursing responses to intractable suffering. (shrink)

This volume offers a new interpretation of Hegel's thought, challenging traditional readings and reconsidering Hegel in terms of his understanding of his own philosophy. Ware connects Hegel to analytic philosophy through mathematical logic.

Background The twenty first- century marked the exponential growth in the use of intelligent robots and artificial intelligent in nursing compared to the previous decades. To the best of our knowledge, this article is first in responding to question, “Can nurses in clinical practice ascribe responsibility to intelligent robots and artificial intelligence when they commit errors?”. Purpose The objective of this article is to present two worldviews (anthropocentrism and biocentrism) in responding to the question at hand chosen based on the (...) roles of the entities involved in the use of intelligent robots and artificial intelligence in nursing. Methods The development of this article was motivated by the immense discoveries, the current landscape, and nurses’ role in relation to advanced technologies in healthcare. The paper begins the discussion by situating the use of intelligent robots and artificial intelligence in nursing and healthcare and presenting its ethical and moral implications. Then, we presented the two worldviews: anthropocentrism and biocentrism which are used to respond to the task at hand. Results Anthropocentrism puts humans in the center in terms of moral standing and thus responsibility rests on them alone. Biocentrism declares that all creations deserve moral consideration and thus responsibility is equally allocated to all entities. Within these two worldviews, consensus development was offered to resolve these issues. Consensus provides clarity and democracy between and among the societies. Conclusions The findings of this article can be basis in (1) instituting mechanisms of robust peer review and a rigorous series of simulation before adopting or implementing intelligent robots and artificial intelligence in clinical practice; (2) education and training of highly specialized nurse practitioners who can be focal persons in responding to ethical and moral issues with regard to these advanced technologies; and (3) harmonization of robotics research, manufacturing, and clinical practice. (shrink)

My aim in this chapter is to address what looks like a tension in Fichte’s derivation of ethical content for the moral law in his System of Ethics. In the first place, Fichte seeks to derive the content of our duties from our “natural drive [Naturtrieb],” which he defines in terms of our striving for enjoyment. But later in the book we find a second argument that derives the content of our duties from what Fichte calls the conditions of our (...) “I-hood [Ichheit],” namely, our embodiment, intelligence, and sociality. I argue that a careful rereading of Fichte’s notion of a natural drive is consistent with this second derivation. The key to this reading lies in Fichte’s effort to reframe the natural drive through the category of “reciprocal interaction [Wechselwirkung],” which allows us to view the natural drive as a “formative drive [Bildungstrieb]” that is both active and passive. For Fichte, the formative drive amounts to a striving for self-organization, and this striving, I argue, prefigures what becomes the ethical drive to engage in reciprocal interaction with other members of the rational community. (shrink)

Many aestheticians and ethicists are interested in the similarities and connections between aesthetics and ethics (Nussbaum 1990; Foot 2002; Gaut 2007). One way in which some have suggested the two domains are different is that in ethics there exist obligations while in aesthetics there do not (Hampshire 1954). However, Marcia Muelder Eaton has argued that there is good reason to think that aesthetic obligations do exist (Eaton 2008). We will explore the nature of these obligations by asking whether acts of (...) aesthetic supererogation (acts that go beyond the call of our aesthetic obligations) are possible. In this paper, we defend the thesis that there is good reason to think such acts exist. (shrink)

Kant’s arguments for the reality of human freedom and the normativity of the moral law continue to inspire work in contemporary moral philosophy. Many prominent ethicists invoke Kant, directly or indirectly, in their efforts to derive the authority of moral requirements from a more basic conception of action, agency, or rationality. But many commentators have detected a deep rift between the _Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals_ and the _Critique of Practical Reason_, leaving Kant’s project of justification exposed to conflicting (...) assessments and interpretations. In this major re-reading of Kant, Owen Ware defends the controversial view that Kant’s mature writings on ethics share a unified commitment to the moral law’s primacy. Using both close analysis and historical contextualization, Owen Ware overturns a paradigmatic way of reading Kant’s arguments for morality and freedom, situating them within Kant’s critical methodology at large. The result is a novel understanding of Kant that challenges much of what goes under the banner of Kantian arguments for moral normativity today. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) remains one of the most enigmatic works of twentieth century thought. In this bold and original new study, Ben Ware argues that Wittgenstein's early masterpiece is neither an analytic treatise on language and logic, nor a quasi-mystical work seeking to communicate 'ineffable' truths. Instead, we come to understand the Tractatus by grasping it in a twofold sense: first, as a dialectical work which invites the reader to overcome certain 'illusions of thought'; and second as a (...) modernist work whose anti-philosophical ambition is intimately tied to its radical aesthetic character. By placing the Tractatus in the force field of modernism, Dialectic of the Ladder clears the ground for a new and challenging exploration of the work's ethical dimension. It also casts new light upon the cultural, aesthetic and political significances of Wittgenstein's writing, revealing hitherto unacknowledged affinities with a host of philosophical and literary authors, including Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Adorno, Benjamin, and Kafka. (shrink)

Despite Kant’s lasting influence on philosophical accounts of moral motivation, many details of his own position remain elusive. In the Critique of Practical Reason, for example, Kant argues that our recognition of the moral law’s authority must elicit both painful and pleasurable feelings in us. On reflection, however, it is unclear how these effects could motivate us to act from duty. As a result, Kant’s theory of moral sensibility comes under a skeptical threat: the possibility of a morally motivating feeling (...) seems incoherent. My aim in this paper is to reconstruct Kant’s theory in a way that overcomes this threat. By way of conclusion, I show how my reconstruction brings a new perspective to a long-standing dispute over intellectualist and affectivist views of moral motivation. (shrink)

This paper defends two claims. First, we will argue for the existence of aesthetic demands in the realm of everyday aesthetics, and that these demands are not reducible to moral demands. Second, we will argue that we must recognise the limits of these demands in order to combat a widespread form of gendered oppression. The concept of aesthetic supererogation offers a new structural framework to understand both the pernicious nature of this oppression and what may be done to mitigate it.

This book addresses the concept of need and how needs can be, and are, met in western societies. Different models of welfare provision are examined both in theoretical terms and through two case studies: of models of pension provision and of the connection between the satisfaction of needs and electoral success for governments. This timely study makes an important contribution to the understanding of welfare and politics in advanced industrial western states.

Hegel's interpretation of Plato's political thought provides the principal illustration of his metaphilosophy. However, Hegel has been criticized for imposing his own metaphilosophical agenda upon Plato's work, and for consequently overestimating its descriptive content while underestimating its prescriptively normative features. A reexamination of Hegel's metaphilosophy nevertheless reveals that he appreciated the broader significance of Plato's political philosophy within a conceptual framework that transcends the traditional dichotomy of description and prescription and that explores issues concerning the relation of theory and practice.

Arguments in support of a Citizens' Income often focus on the freedom from fear, anxiety, and uncertainty such an initiative would offer. Arguments against a Citizens' Income often assert that without fear, individuals would not be motivated to work. These arguments, however, are made without consideration of the empirical or theoretical research we have on fear. In this paper, I draw on the philosophy and cognitive science of fear to evaluate whether either argument can deliver what its proponents want.

Kant is well known for claiming that we can never really know our true moral disposition. He is less well known for claiming that the injunction "Know Yourself" is the basis of all self-regarding duties. Taken together, these two claims seem contradictory. My aim in this paper is to show how they can be reconciled. I first address the question of whether the duty of self-knowledge is logically coherent (§1). I then examine some of the practical problems surrounding the duty, (...) notably, self-deception (§2). Finding none of Kant's solutions to the problem of self-deception satisfactory, I conclude by defending a Kantian account of self-knowledge based on his theory of conscience (§3). (shrink)

The aim of this article is to demonstrate the intricate operation of the adverb `also' in actual interaction at a level of detail that dictionary definitions have failed to capture. Using primarily a conversation analytic framework in examining two data corpora, which include a series of graduate seminar discussions and television roundtable discussions, I argue that the semantic features of `also' are strategically deployed to accomplish complex interactional goals in a disjunctive or disaffiliative environment. In a disjunctive environment, `also' can (...) be invoked to legitimize one's speaking rights - to get the floor. In a disaffiliative environment, `also' can be mobilized to either soften or strengthen a disaffiliative action in subsequent talk. These practices of `also' are accounted for in part by the tensions between coherence and continuation, and in part by the institutional contexts of news media and graduate seminar. (shrink)

Hegel's logic provides a basis for an interpretation of his philosophy of history and political theory which avoids many of the difficulties that traditionally have been associated with his views, leaving us with a clear and useful model of modern political interaction. The unification of content and form provides for the inherently historicist features of the model, that resolve the traditional dichotomy of description and prescription by presenting the state as a historical process, developing through the opposition between the normative (...) claims of its constituents and the determinate socio-political arrangements existing at any particular stage in its history. The discussion begins with a brief examination of Hegel's doctrines of the concept and the _idea, which it subsequently applies to an interpretation of his concepts of _Sittlichkeit and the state. (shrink)