This article argues, from a critical realist perspective, that it would be beneficial to extend thinking on how personal and social education could become more central to students’ learning. We explore how constructive-informed arrangements which emphasize cognitive skills and affective qualities could be realized through experiential approaches to learning. Our theorizing is informed by neo-Aristotelian thinking on the importance of identifying mutually acceptable value commitments which can cultivate practical wisdom as well as generally benefit society. Thereafter, we outline how the (...) recent writings of Tiberius could inform thinking on how, epistemologically and ethically, a first person perspective on learning and personal growth could connect with normative decision making on how to make good life choices. We conclude by briefly highlighting the methodological potential of using outdoor learning environments to help students make informed and wise judgements which show evidence of discernment, deliberation and effective decision making. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.1 (2002) 147-153 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals Steven M. Wise. Foreward by Jane Goodall. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Books, 2000. pp. 384. US $17.50. ISBN 0-7382-0437-4 (Paperback) "Ancient philosophers claimed that all nonhuman animals had been designed and placed on this earth just for human beings. Ancient (...) jurists declared that law had been created just for human beings. Although philosophy and science have long since recanted, the law has not." Steven M. Wise, Rattling the Cage, p. 4. Readers of this journal are well-versed in the myriad ways in which nonhuman animals are harmfully exploited at the hands of human beings—from battery hens and veal calves to mass-produced pigs; from Pennsylvania pigeon shoots to canned hunts on Texas ranches; from rodeos to roadside zoos; from LD-50 toxicity tests on rats and Draize eye tests on rabbits to head trauma and infectious disease experimentation on primates. Despite other sticking points, it is by now uncontroversial among [End Page 147] nonanthropocentric theorists that, in utilitarian terms, the benefits to humans of the above practices fall far short of justifying the harms they cause to their nonhuman victims or, in deontological terms, that they violate the rights of creatures with inherent value. Indeed, these arguments are so well-rehearsed and so widely regarded as compelling that it no longer seems particularly bold to predict that if reason ever prevails over tradition and prejudice, the future will look back on this generation's treatment of our fellow creatures with the same kind of shame and condemnation with which European Americans regard our slaveholding past.More sobering but equally familiar is the observation that decisive arguments for the gross immorality of existing practices will bring about neither their elimination nor significant reform as long as the presumed legitimacy of human exploitation of nonhuman beings remains entrenched in both popular consciousness and economic, political, and legal institutions. In the interests of chipping away at popular apathy, academics should no doubt go on repeating the well-worn arguments against speciesism in classrooms, popular venues, and professional research. But in a world structured far more directly by the interests of a powerful few than by the values of the many, this consciousness-raising strategy properly plays at most a supporting role to the even more vital project of challenging and ultimately restructuring the institutions that sanction and carry out these injustices. In short, what nonhuman animals need from ethically sensitive intellectuals is not just rational argument, but effective legal and political action.One of the main institutional obstacles to progress in this area is undoubtedly the legal relegation of animals to property status—which is why Steve M. Wise's Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals is such an important book. Wise teaches animal rights law at Harvard, Vermont, and John Marshall Law Schools and has spent more than twenty years fighting for animals in the legal system; his book displays the bittersweet fruit of that experience. The tenor throughout is a mixture of conviction in the justice of his cause—which cannot but sustain a vision of its eventual success—together with the frustration and determined patience borne from decades of butting up against an utterly implacable wall. An eloquent foreword by Jane Goodall, together with Wise's own harrowing first chapter, describe the nightmarish existences imposed on our nearest nonhuman relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos, for the sake of science, entertainment, and profit—nightmares enabled by a legal system that [End Page 148] treats all nonhumans as mere things. An engaging storyteller with a synthetic conception of the history of ideas, Wise unearths the origins of this conception of animals in the Great Chain of Being, demonstrates its defeat by Darwinian science, and builds piece by piece a case—drawing heavily on research into animal consciousness—for extending legal rights at least to chimpanzees and bonobos.The substantive theses of this case are, first, that the denial of... (shrink)

Benton MacKaye's name is rarely evoked in the fields of environmental history and philosophy. The author of the Appalachian Trail in the early 1920s and a co-founder of the Wilderness Society with Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall in the 1930s, MacKaye's unique contribution to American environmental thought is seldom recognized. This neglect is particularly egregious in the current debate over the intellectual foundations of the American wilderness idea, a discussion to which I believe MacKaye has much to contribute. Specifically, (...) I believe that his pragmatic vision for wilderness conservation, a project supported through an appeal to the values of a reconstructed "indigenous" communal environment, owes much to the social philosophy of Josiah Royce, MacKaye's former teacher at Harvard. While the Appalachian Trail never delivered on MacKaye's goals of progressive reform and failed to unite the regional planning and conservation communities of the time, his vision remains highly relevant to our present-day deliberations about the relationship between wild nature and society at the dawn of the 21st century. (shrink)

This book is our century’s most comprehensive and wise treatment of nihilism in all of its guises, comparing favorably with Rosen, Cavell, and indeed with Spengler. Crosby argues that our culture is genuinely haunted by nihilism expressing itself in the fideism of fundamentalism as well as in the debilitating alienation from all orientation. This results from a one-sided development of Western culture. Unlike most writers on this topic, Crosby acknowledges many sources colluding to frame the culture of nihilism, including (...) “the death of God,” the objectification of nature, the meaninglessness of suffering in a mechanical universe, the ephemerality of time in a world where value does not accumulate, the arbitrariness of historicized reason, the reduction of value to will, and the alienation of the Cartesian ego. These sources are reviewed in the first two parts of the book with the result that the phenomenon of nihilism becomes understandable. In its third and fourth parts, Crosby provides a critical analysis of the religious and philosophical forces leading to nihilism by discussing authors from the early modern period through Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Russell, and Derrida. He shows that these forces are skewed and impoverished and should not be allowed to determine our situation. The comprehensive attention to detail and the multi-perspectival interpretation demonstrates as well as asserts the richness of the culture that puts nihilism in its place. Part Five, finally, rephrases the criticism of the sources of nihilism in positive ways. Part Four in particular is a tour de force of philosophical argument. Its richness of nuance, plurality of views examined, and adroitness of critical interpretation provide cumulatively a powerful, non-nihilistic reading of the philosophic tradition. The force of the argument derives from its comprehensive, cumulative character. Crosby distinguishes and relates five areas of nihilism: political, moral, epistemological, cosmic, and existential. Throughout the book, he illustrates and examines these as they are expressed in literature and art, in daily life and practical affairs, and in philosophy. The book is richly erudite in its marshalling of consciousness from so many domains. (shrink)

No doubt men are capable even now of much more unselfish service than they generally render; and the supreme aim of the economist is to discover how this latent social asset can be developed more quickly and turned to account more wisely. (Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics , p. 8).

Plato extends a bold, confident, and surprising empirical challenge. It is implicitly a claim about the psychological — more specifically motivational — economies of human beings, asserting that within each such economy there is a desire to live well. Call this claim ‘psychological eudaimonism’ (‘PE’). Further, the context makes clear that Plato thinks that this desire dominates in those who have it. In other words, the desire to live well can reliably be counted on (when accompanied with correct beliefs about (...) the role of morality or virtue in living well) to move people be virtuous. As we will argue, this general claim appears in not only Plato but Aristotle and the Stoics as well. But it is one we might wonder about, in three ways. First, we might wonder about its warrant. After all, the claim is universal in scope; yet it is about a highly contingent fact about the motivational propensities of individual human organisms, and there is abundant variability in the individual forms human nature takes. What grounds could the ancients have for their confidence that there are no outliers (assuming, as we do, that they do not merely misspeak in framing general claims as universal ones)? Second, we might wonder about its truth. For were it true, it would entail something remarkable about the nature of rationality that we (post-)moderns would be wise to heed. And third, we might wonder about its relationship with normative eudaimonism. By ‘normative eudaimonism’ (‘NE’) we mean the claim that we have conclusive reason to act in ways that conduce to our own eudaimonia. As we will show, the key to these three questions is the first. If we consider what justification the ancients have for their claim, we can see why that claim must be true. Moreover, as we will also show, it must be true because of the nature of practical rationality as the ancients understood it — that is, in terms of normative eudaimonism. We will show this by marshalling unexpected resources: Donald Davidson’s work in understanding how we interpret others and in so doing make sense of them as rational beings. If we couple Davidson’s account of interpretation with the eudaimonist structure of practical rationality essential to these ancient ethical theories, psychological eudaimonism is a consequence. The paper proceeds as follows. In Section I, we lay out the textual basis for ascribing PE to Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. In Section II, we introduce Davidson’s account of interpretation. This allows us to appropriate that account in Section III to the particular purposes of normative eudaimonism, to support the claim that we must ascribe the desire to live well to those whom we would see as rational. Finally, in Section IV we consider challenges to this strategy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes’s Moral Theory by John MarshallMartin HarveyJohn Marshall. Descartes’s Moral Theory. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Pp. xi + 177. Cloth, $35.00.In this concise, well-wrought and provocative work, John Marshall sets two primary goals for himself: 1) to show that Descartes, contrary to the received view, does provide us with the foundational elements of a full fledged ethical theory, and 2) to prove, again contrary to (...) standard interpreters, that Descartes’s early theory of morals, as sketched in the Discourse, is at one with the later theory propounded in The Passions of the Soul and numerous correspondences with Princess Elizabeth.The book is divided into three parts. The first section includes a thorough discussion of Descartes’s self-described morale par provision which provides the philosophical inquirer with practical guidance while the theoretical foundations of his or her belief system are shorn by radical doubt. These four maxims—to follow the customs of one’s country, practice one’s faith and rely on the opinions of the wise, to act resolutely in the face of uncertainty, to master one’s passions and to live the life, at least in Descartes’s case, of a philosopher—should not, Marshall argues, be viewed as ‘provisional’ in a pejorative sense (16–19). Instead, Marshall claims that Descartes takes them to be derivable from his four rules of method (14; 32–33). Therefore, the morale par provision is not some sort of “convenient” compromise but actually forms the second order core of a viable ethical theory (16). The second part, Descartes’s “Final Morality” is devoted to exploring Descartes’s conception of virtue and his notion of the good life (57). Succinctly, the good life for Descartes is happiness which, according to Marshall, in a very weakly Neo-Stoic sense is taken to consist in virtue and wisdom. Formally defined, Cartesian virtue is “the disposition always to judge as well as we can what is the best plan of action and to adhere strictly to that plan” (63). In turn, in a letter to Elizabeth, we are informed that behaving virtuously requires one to display strength and firmness of will, to judge well, and to possess well ordered desires—evidence which Marshall takes to show a close correspondence with the maxims of the earlier morale par provision. (74–5). Contra commentators such as Geroult, an apparent conceptual continuum between the early and later theories thereby obtains. (See Martial Geroult, Descartes’s Philosophy Interpreted according to the Order of Reasons, translated by Roger Ariew [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985], Chapters 19–20.)Unfortunately, and as Marshall readily admits, Descartes provides us with little substantive guidance concerning his axiology and theory of right action. Thus, the third, and more “speculative” part of the work seeks to correct this deficit by delving into a proposed Cartesian metaethics (115). Marshall begins by fleshing out Descartes’s [End Page 677] concept of the Summum Bonum, i.e., virtue. Cartesian virtue is a second-order good which instructs us to strive after and promote various intrinsically valuable first-order goods such as joy, knowledge, friendship, free will, the love of God, etc. (118). As such, Descartes seems to provide us with a fairly straightforward teleological conception of ethics. Nonetheless, when we turn to moral theory proper, Marshall wants to claim that Descartes exhibits certain proto-Kantian leanings, entailed by his concept of generosite as discussed at length in The Passions. The genereux, i.e., those who display generosite, are individuals who, Marshall argues, always act with “respect” towards others and thus treat their fellows both benevolently and justly (152). The basis for this respect is to be found, and this is somewhat of a stretch, albeit an interesting one, in our mutual capacity for free and rational willing (156). From here, of course, it would be a rather short step to Kant. More work needs to be done, however, to square this seemingly non-consequentialist conception of right action with Descartes’s teleological axiology.Regardless, Marshall has accomplished his first task—the normative theory outlined in The Passions, although rudimentary, certainly deserves to be viewed as ethical, not simply prudential, in... (shrink)

In his recent book, Professor J. S. Morrison has brought to a happy conclusion a quarter of a century and more of inspired research into the problem of how the oars of a classical trireme were arranged. The essence of his solution of this perennial problem is that the fifth-century Athenian trireme had her oars and benches alike disposed at three different levels, each rower having his own oar, and each oar its separate thole set at a distance of feet, (...) not inches, from its neighbours. The evidence is marshalled with such mastery that it may be thought unlikely that there will ever be any general recrudescence of the di scaloccio and a zenzile theories that were as fashionable once as they are seen now to have been unhistorical. In his inquiry, however, Professor Morrison has wisely confined himself to the ancient sources, and no more than touched upon the analogy of the Byzantine dromon, the direct descendant of the classical trireme and to some extent the parent of the a zenzile galley. Other protagonists, and notably Tarn, have been far from sharing his discretion, and there is still room perhaps for a brief note calling attention to the possibility that the dromon of the Middle Ages may shed indirect light upon the trireme of fifteen hundred years earlier. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:War, Peace, and Reconciliation: A Theological Inquiry by Theodore R. WeberDavid H. MessnerWar, Peace, and Reconciliation: A Theological Inquiry Theodore R. Weber EUGENE, OR: WIPF & STOCK, 2015. 182 pp. $23.00Weber's book makes a helpful contribution to enlivening more theologically grounded strategies for peacemaking through reconciliation. It is a careful, systematic work that takes as its foundation a distinctively Christian view of [End Page 214] God's nature and (...) relation to the world. As a scholar and a pastor for over fifty years, Weber brings a much-needed, wise, and re-centered view to the questions entangled in war, peace, and reconciliation. He advises us not to look first into the realities of war for God, but to look to understand God as the context for all human conflict. He forcefully calls the reader to be a reconciler despite the intractability of conflict. The book is structured in three main parts, beginning with the theological context, then the political context, and, last, to peace, justice, and the church.The "war" that Weber addresses is interstate conflict, representing the negation of the web of relationships constituting a healthy international system. War disrupts God's plan and ruptures the right relationship between humanity and God (43–44). Throughout, Weber embraces a kind of Christian Realism, one that takes seriously the loving nature of God, the sinfulness of humanity, and the limits and possibilities for peacemaking in a human world. Downplaying the pacifistic message of Jesus, Weber highlights the necessities within a fallen world. We cannot eliminate war as a category of existence under the conditions of sin (until the eschaton), but with right orientation and action we can eliminate some war.Noting inadequacies of the just war tradition (though not dispensing with it), Weber identifies the need to ground it more firmly in theology, including enhanced attention to "just intention" as a primary criterion in evaluating the prosecution of war, displacing cause as the first question with which we must interrogate ourselves. Discernment about war and peace must be an ongoing conversation that should include people of faith as well as policymakers. Weber's theological and pastoral sensibilities, alongside his political savvy throughout, make the book a pleasurable and provocative read.The definition of reconciliation deployed is broad and complex, and Weber marshals it for powerful work. Reconciliation "is God's work—the movement of Divine grace through history, engaging all aspects of brokenness and promise and reaching its climax of fulfillment and disclosure in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ" (3). Grace continually calls humanity to enter into the work of reconciliation. Here Weber introduces the idea of relational power; more nuanced than mere substantive power, it connects to the core idea of institution building and the critical emphasis on strengthening the social fabric in the interest of peace. It is the hallmark of the reconciling transformation from systems of dominance to relationships of consent.The book raises questions regarding how to put reconciliation as described into concrete practice, responding to real cases and controversies. Also, there could be added discussion, against this theological backdrop, of what opportunities exist amid current US and global regime change to enter this reconciling activity more fully.Ultimately, the Christian context is central to understanding the ethics that Weber advances. Weber recommends a biblical foundation, one in which [End Page 215] we take the benefit of reading scripture backward from the Christ event. Such an exegetical strategy reveals that God has a plan for all of humanity, a vision of inclusiveness and reconciliation. It is from this vantage point of God's culminating vision, Weber illuminates, that we can understand and embrace human action throughout history and the meaningful, if incomplete, work of reconciliation to which we must commit ourselves, both politically and spiritually. [End Page 216]David H. MessnerEmory UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Human Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic ThemesCatherine E. MorrisonHuman Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes by Paul Schollmeier Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. x + 302. $80.00, cloth.This is a book about spirits—human, godly, ghostly, and alcoholic. Paul Schollmeier's Human Goodness: Pragmatic Variations on Platonic Themes explores how humble humans act morally in an absurd world. Schollmeier contends that the Socratic spirit, or daimon, of self-knowledge and (...) hypothesis testing provides the foundation for a deeply human moral philosophy. It is, in Schollmeier's elegant phrasing, daimonic rather than eudaimonic, joining Aristotle and Plato with William James, as well as contributions from the ghosts of David Hume and Immanuel Kant and a few rounds of whiskey. Spirits abound! Mixing Socratic skepticism with Jamesian empiricism, Schollmeier argues that we act best when we apply general principles held as opinion (not as certain knowledge), and tested through experience, to our particular situation. When these opinions yield fruit, we find ourselves less at the whim of our capricious surroundings; when they do not, we are obliged to recognize the provisional nature of our opinions and change them. The ends of these day-to-day activities reflect a far grander cosmological order, one we ignore to our mortal (and moral) peril. It is by engaging in this intellectual activity that we are made happy, and it is in measured pursuit of this happiness that we are virtuous. Our actions are neither absolutely true nor perfect. They are instead the best that we can do. And for a reviewer attempting to encapsulate a finely nuanced book in a small space, this is comforting advice indeed. [End Page 190]The book begins with a puzzle: The curious twin claims in Plato's Apology that, true to the Delphic oracle's proclamation, Socrates is both wise and knows nothing. The key to this apparent paradox, Schollmeier contends, is the difference between divine knowledge, "ultimate, nonhypothetical knowledge of final causes" (6), and human knowledge, which is hypothetical only. Schollmeier marshals William James to argue that as humans, we encounter objects of knowledge perceptually; even our concepts are fashioned from this meager material. Without access to divine knowledge, humans must test hypotheses and assume that they are true only provisionally.James's (and Hume's) emphasis on the passions as the foundation for action, however, gives Schollmeier pause. In order to construct a moral philosophy that avoids absolutism but remains objective, Schollmeier argues for a harmony between the intellectual and the passional that is ultimately rational, our Socratic daimon. We are neither gods nor animals. Should we surrender rationality to desire, Schollmeier warns in concert with Socrates, our already fragile perceptual knowledge will be further distorted by fickle emotion. It is precisely because our grasp on the world is so tenuous that we must pay heed to cool intellect rather than hot passion.Such skepticism of our claim to know might make one hesitant to engage in the enigmatic world—but we have no choice! In order to find our hybrid daimon, both Socratic and pragmatic, Schollmeier suggests rhetoric as the methodology best suited to serving practical knowledge because it eschews certainty in favor of probability and acknowledges that the hypotheses on which we act are tentative and revisable. To this end, Schollmeier highlights the enthymeme and argument by example as the two techniques that best suit the nature of our hypothetical knowledge, and he urges a return to philodoxy, the love of opinion.Giving up our claim to certainty need not be a dismal proposition. Having established his methodology, Schollmeier begins building a moral philosophy that embraces an ontology of change and contends that our happiness provides us with stability in the form of a rational teleology. The objects of our human happiness are fleeting and changeable, so happiness cannot be static but is, rather, an activity that is its own end, "an activity that is an intellectual inquiry" (78). Our happiness is contingent on our ability to hypothetically determine, in our particular setting, our function and then fulfill this role to the best of our abilities. Depending on the setting, it may be dancing, parenting, or simply a lively... (shrink)

Dan Marshall and Josh Parsons note, correctly. that the property of being either a cube or accompanied by a cube is incorrectly classified as intrinsic under the definition we have given unless it turns out to be disjunctive. Whether it is disjunctive, under the definition we gave, turns on certain judgements of the relative naturalness of properties. They doubt the judgements of relative naturalness that would classify their property as disjunctive. We disagree. They also suggest that the whole idea (...) of judging relative naturalness is a dubious business. We reply that, like them or not, such judgements cannot easily be avoided. (shrink)

Notice --- Hobbes and Adams as Thucydideans --- Ancient Greece --- Alternative Concepts of the Human Condition --- Medieval Monarchy --- Renaissance Republics --- Founding Fathers --- The Moral Recuperation of Self-Interest --- Other Human Worlds --- Now is the Whimper of Our Self-Contempt --- Culture is the Human Nature.

Criticized as a nostalgic anachronism by those who oppose her version of political theory and lauded as symbol of direct democratic participation by those who favor it, the Athenian polis features prominently in Hannah Arendt's account of politics. This essay traces the origin and development of Arendt's conception of the polis as a space of appearance from the early 1950s onward. It makes particular use of the Denktagebuch, Arendt's intellectual diary, in order to shed new light on the historicity of (...) one of her central concepts. The article contends that both critics and partisans of Arendt's use of the polis have made the same mistake: they have presumed that the polis represents a space of face-to-face immediacy. In fact, Arendt compared the polis to a series of analogues, many of which are not centered on direct exchanges between political actors and spectators. As a result, Arendt's early work on the polis turns out to anticipate many of the concerns of her later work on judgment, and her theory of the polis becomes a theory of topics. (shrink)

Physicians generally recommend that patients resuscitated with naloxone after opioid overdose stay in the emergency department for a period of observation in order to prevent harm from delayed sequelae of opioid toxicity. Patients frequently refuse this period of observation despiteenefit to risk. Healthcare providers are thus confronted with the challenge of how best to protect the patient’s interests while also respecting autonomy, including assessing whether the patient is making an autonomous choice to refuse care. Previous studies have shown that physicians (...) have widely divergent approaches to navigating these conflicts. This paper reviews what is known about the effects of opioid use disorder on decision-making, and argues that some subset of these refusals are non-autonomous choices, even when patients appear to have decision making capacity. This conclusion has several implications for how physicians assess and respond to patients refusing medical recommendations after naloxone resuscitation. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes several key themes in Kant’s views about modality. We begin with the pre-critical Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God, in which Kant distinguishes between formal and material elements of possibility, claims that all possibility requires an actual ground, and argues for the existence of a single necessary being. We then briefly consider how Kant’s views change in his mature period, especially concerning the role of form and thought in defining modality. (...) Kant’s mature views, however, present two difficult interpretive puzzles. The first puzzle concerns whether Kant has a generally reductive view of modality. While Kant’s views on logical modality, the role of actuality in grounding possibility, and the relation of modality to cognition all suggest reduction, we argue that the categorial status of modal concepts and the difficulty in even identifying amodal grounds for modal facts all suggest a non-reductive view. The second puzzle concerns whether Kant accepts modal facts or properties at the noumenal level. While Kant’s appeal to noumenal necessary connections, the contingency of noumenal willing, and the idea of a necessary noumenal being suggest that he endorses noumenal modality, his claims that modal concepts express only relations to the faculty of cognition and his claim that modal concepts arise from our distinctive psychological structures, we argue, suggest that he rejects noumenal modality. We conclude by considering potential solutions to these puzzles. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that Kant can be read as holding that "ought" judgments follow from certain "is" judgments by mere analysis. More specifically, I defend an interpretation according to which (1) Kant holds that “S ought to F” is analytically equivalent to “If, as it can and would were there no other influences on the will, S’s faculty of reason determined S’s willing, S would F” and (2) Kant’s notions of reason, the will, and freedom are all fundamentally (...) non-normative. Not only does this reading have significant textual support, but, I claim, it also sheds light on why Kant takes freedom and morality to mutually imply one another. Moreover, while Kant does take there to be a gap between moral judgments and empirical descriptive statements, that gap is consistent with the analysis in question. I conclude by arguing that this rejection of the is-ought gap is not as philosophically implausible as it might seem, with a focus on G.E. Moore and Hume’s arguments for certain ‘gaps’ between the normative and the non-normative. (shrink)

The Metaphysical Society was founded in 1869 at the instigation of James Knowles (editor of the Contemporary Review and then of the Nineteenth Century) with a view to "collect, arrange, and diffuse Knowledge (whether objective or subjective) of mental and moral phenomena" (first resolution of the Society in April 1869). The Society was a private club which gathered together a latter-day clerisy. Building on the tradition of the Cambridge Apostles, they elected talented members from across the Victorian intellectual spectrum: Bishops, (...) one Cardinal, philosophers, men of science, literary figures, and politicians. The Society included in its 62 members prominent figures such as T. H. Huxley, William Gladstone, Walter Bagehot, Henry Edward Manning, John Ruskin and Alfred Lord Tennyson. The papers they produced are key primary sources which shed new light on the ideas of their authors on the burning subjects of the day, ranging from the existence and personality of God to the nature of conscience or the existence of the soul. They are a legacy of a period when intellectuals were wondering how, and what, to believe in a time of social change, spiritual crisis, and scientific progress. The dissolution of the Society in 1880 did not diminish the value of the papers: they illustrate a tradition of private, open discussion among famous men of the most widely varying views; they offer detailed insight into the evolution of the relationships between different schools of Victorian scientific and religious thought; and they bring to light heretofore under-represented points of conflict and harmony. All 95 papers are included, accompanied by introductions and scholarly notes that set each paper into their proper context. (shrink)

On the traditional reading, Schopenhauer claims that compassion is the recognition of deep metaphysical unity. In this paper, I defend and develop the traditional reading. I begin by addressing three recent criticisms of that reading from Sandra Shapshay: that it fails to accommodate Schopenhauer's restriction to sentient beings, that it cannot explain his moral ranking of egoism over malice, and that Schopenhauer requires some level of distinction to remain in compassion. Against Shapshay, I argue that Schopenhauer does not restrict compassion (...) to sentient beings and that a more metaphysically refined version of the traditional reading can accommodate both Schopenhauer's moral ranking of characters and allow for some level of distinction in compassion. I then turn to four further questions for the traditional reading: what the relation is between the feeling of compassionate pain and the recognition of metaphysical unity, how cognitions mediate compassion, whether compassion is limited to the present, and how the feeling of compassion relates to Schopenhauer's fundamental moral principle. I conclude by explaining how, in a reductive vein, the traditional reading can also allow for compassion to have normative content. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Informed Christians have learned in our day that Islâm is not a primitive desert religion spread by the sword, for which faith is reduced to fatalism and women have no souls. Yet Christian historians of religion who avoid such gross errors still tend to present Islâm as at best an imperfect and parochial version of Christian truth, lacking any distinctive genius truly worthy of its independent dignity among the world religions. But until modern times, when the Christianity (and Judaism) of (...) Europeans has been radically transformed along with their secular life, Christianity must long have struck an observer from Mars as, compared to Islâm, the relatively localized faith of largely backward lands. Islâm was the vehicle of a complex and sophisticated sense of social order in a varied and highly creative civilization which was expanding continuously until its field of action encompassed half mankind; it was the only one of the major historical religions which had successfully displaced in large areas other major faiths such as Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The Martian observing human history in the later Middle Ages might find it easier to understand why Muslims have looked on Christianity as merely an abortive form of Islâm, as for instance in the approach of those Şûfîs, Muslim mystics, who see the perfection of Islâm in its uniting at once the dispensation of Law, which reflects the Majesty of God, and the dispensation of Grace, which reflects his Beauty, whereas Judaism and Christianity are limited to only the one or the other. This Muslim conception is as inadequate, however, as its Christian counterpart. Probably any widespread religious system will find a place for all major types of religious insight and practice and is in its own way complete. Yet, as each system has matured, it has revealed a characteristic persistent pattern of norms in the interrelation and subordination to one another of all the elements embodied in it. If Christians are to perceive the genius of Islâm, it must perhaps be through the comparison of such persistent patterns. (shrink)

In this long awaited volume, John Marshall invites us to reconsider Rene Descartes as an ethicist.

Unchangeable. Unwavering. Let God's Truth Anchor You. The world is a sea of clashing beliefs and thoughts. Your own feelings and circumstances change from one day to the next. Your heart longs for something to hold on to...something to steer you in the right direction and give you peace. Only God's truth can satisfy that longing. Bestselling author Randy Alcorn shares daily meditations, Scripture readings, and inspirational quotes to help you grasp the wisdom and love found in the eternal (...) Word of God. When you know the truth, you'll be better prepared to... recognize your place in God's plan detect the deceit you encounter in the world point others to Jesus, who is Truth personified God's truth is real, alive, and able to transform you into the person you long to be. This is your invitation to refresh your heart and find lasting security. (shrink)

Mystical experiences of the natural world bring a sense of unity, knowledge, self-transcendence, eternity, light, and love. This is the first detailed study of these intriguing phenomena. Paul Marshall surveys and evaluates a wide range of explanations put forward by religious thinkers, philosophers, and scientists, and offers his own perspective on the nature of these experiences.

Kant's philosophy promises to explain various synthetic a priori claims. Yet, as several of his commentators have noted, it is hard to see how these explanations could work unless they themselves rested on unexplained synthetic a priori claims. Since Kant appears to demand explanations for all synthetic a priori claims, it would seem that his project fails on its own terms. I argue, however, that Kant holds that explanations are required only for synthetic a priori claims about (purportedly) experience-independent entities, (...) and that his project rests on a rationalist method of reflection that justifies certain basic synthetic a priori claims. (shrink)

Eugene Marshall presents an original, systematic account of Spinoza's philosophy of mind, in which the mind is presented as an affective mechanism that, when rational, behaves as a spiritual automaton. He explores key themes in Spinoza's thought, and illuminates his philosophical and ethical project in a striking new way.

We have some of our properties purely in virtue of the way we are. (Our mass is an example.) We have other properties in virtue of the way we interact with the world. (Our weight is an example.) The former are the intrinsic properties, the latter are the extrinsic properties. This seems to be an intuitive enough distinction to grasp, and hence the intuitive distinction has made its way into many discussions in philosophy, including discussions in ethics, philosophy of mind, (...) metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of physics. Unfortunately, when we look more closely at the intuitive distinction, we find reason to suspect that it conflates a few related distinctions, and that each of these distinctions is somewhat resistant to analysis. (shrink)

Kids in the Middle: The Micro-Politics of Special Education takes the reader on a fascinating journey through special education in the past, present, and future. On this journey, the micro-politics of special education are seen through the eyes and experiences of children with disabilities, their parents and advocates, adult educators, and school administrators. Supplementing these perspectives to develop an understanding of special education that goes beyond its administrative and political aspects, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act , are (...) scholars with expertise in special education law, administration, severe and profound disabilities, ethics, finance, teaching, and disability rights. Together, these voices explain the micro-political issues that affect how children with disabilities are educated. Kids in the Middle promotes a new model of special education to help transform special education. Instead of perpetuating a system grounded in the concepts of promises, privilege, and power, this book considers how to build a system based on caring, compassion, and the common good, a system that will elevate the status of special education children who are lost in the middle. (shrink)

This book offers a ground-up defense of objective morality, drawing inspiration from a wide range of philosophers, including John Locke, Arthur Schopenhauer, Iris Murdoch, Nel Noddings, and David Lewis. The core claim is compassion is our capacity to perceive other creatures' pains, pleasures, and desires. Non-compassionate people are therefore perceptually lacking, regardless of how much factual knowledge they might have. Marshall argues that people who do have this form of compassion thereby fit a familiar paradigm of moral goodness. His (...) argument involves the identification of an epistemic good which Marshall dubs "being in touch". To be in touch with some property of a thing requires experiencing it in a way that reveals that property - that is, experiencing it as it is in itself. Only compassion, Marshall argues, lets us be in touch with others' motivational mental properties. -/- This conclusion about compassion has two important metaethical consequences. First, it generates an answer to the question ";Why be moral?", which has been a central philosophical concern since Plato. Second, it provides the keystone for a novel form of moral realism. This form of moral realism has a distinctive set of virtues: it is anti-relativist, naturalist, and able to identify a necessary connection between moral representation and motivation. The view also implies that there is an epistemic asymmetry between virtuous and vicious agents, according to which only morally good people can fully face reality. (shrink)