Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and (...) this makes it plausible to claim that the preference is rationally permitted. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output filters and input filters) can account for a wide range of rights-based moral theories, (...) including the absolute notions of moral rights proposed by Hayek, Mayo, Nozick, and Shue. We also discuss whether the use of output filters and input filters can be generalized to cover other non-utilitarian theories, such as Kantian duty ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output filters and input filters) can account for a wide range of rights-based moral theories, (...) including the absolute notions of moral rights proposed by Hayek, Mayo, Nozick, and Shue. We also discuss whether the use of output filters and input filters can be generalized to cover other non-utilitarian theories, such as Kantian duty ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

Johansson and Rosenqvist reject our argument for the rational permissibility of pure time preferences (PTP). Johansson and Rosenqvist's main objection is that where two options, X and Y, have equal intrinsic value, there will be a reason to be indifferent between X and Y, and therefore a reason to not hold a PTP for X or Y. In this reply, we argue that if two options have equal intrinsic value, it does not follow that you have a reason to be (...) indifferent. Rather, the two equally large intrinsic values cancel each other out, like two equal weights on kitchen scales. (shrink)

Early in February 1978, we received the following letter from Lowry Nelson, Jr., professor of comparative literature at Yale University: Regarding the exchange between Professors Martin and Hartman in Critical Inquiry 4 : 397-416, I would like to comment on the use of the institutional adjective "Yale." Labels are naturally sticky and attaching them is a habit and for a time a convenience. It would be unfortunate if the label that reads "the Yale group" or "the Yale critics" (...) were to gain unchallenged currency. So far as I can see, there is nothing that could be called a "school" of criticism here and certainly there is no indoctrination of students of some touted orthodoxy. In literary criticism there is still, and I am confident there will continue to be, a great range of views and interests discussed generally with amicable forthrightness. Versions of Hegel and Freud, revivals of rhetoric, criticism as "literature," and etymological dabbling are not so very new or so very local. This still enlightened academic grove has not and will not become a lucus a non lucendo. (shrink)

In _The Moral Austerity of Environmental Decision Making_ a group of prominent environmental ethicists, policy analysts, political theorists, and legal experts challenges the dominating influence of market principles and assumptions on the formulation of environmental policy. Emphasizing the concept of sustainability and the centrality of moral deliberation to democracy, they examine the possibilities for a wider variety of moral principles to play an active role in defining “good” environmental decisions. If environmental policy is to be responsible to humanity and to (...) nature in the twenty-first century, they argue, it is imperative that the discourse acknowledge and integrate additional normative assumptions and principles other than those endorsed by the market paradigm. The contributors search for these assumptions and principles in short arguments and debates over the role of science, social justice, instrumental value, and intrinsic value in contemporary environmental policy. In their discussion of moral alternatives to enrich environmental decision making and in their search for a less austere and more robust role for normative discourse in practical policy making, they analyze a series of original case studies that deal with environmental sustainability and natural resources policy including pollution, land use, environmental law, globalism, and public lands. The unique structure of the book—which features the core contributors responding in a discourse format to the central chapters’ essays and debates—helps to highlight the role personal and public values play in democratic decision making generally and in the field of environmental politics specifically. _Contributors._ Joe Bowersox, David Brower, Susan Buck, Celia Campbell-Mohn, John Martin Gillroy, Joel Kassiola, Jan Laitos, William Lowry, Bryan Norton, Robert Paehlke, Barry G. Rabe, Mark Sagoff, Anna K. Schwab, Bob Pepperman Taylor, Jonathan Wiener. (shrink)

A pure time preference is a preference for something to occur at one point in time rather than another, merely because of when it occurs in time. Such preferences are widely regarded as paradigm examples of irrational preferences. However, Rosemary Lowry and Martin Peterson have recently argued that, for instance, a pure time preference to go to the opera tonight rather than next month may be rationally permissible, even if the amounts of intrinsic value realized in both cases (...) are identical. In this reply, we argue that Lowry and Peterson's argument is unsuccessful. (shrink)

Evidence from functional neuroimaging of the human brain indicates that information about salient properties of an object¿such as what it looks like, how it moves, and how it is used¿is stored in sensory and motor systems active when that information was acquired. As a result, object concepts belonging to different categories like animals and tools are represented in partially distinct, sensory- and motor property-based neural networks. This suggests that object concepts are not explicitly represented, but rather emerge from weighted activity (...) within property-based brain regions. However, some property-based regions seem to show a categorical organization, thus providing evidence consistent with category-based, domain-specific formulations as well.Acronyms and DefinitionsBiological motion: motion of animate agents characterized by highly flexible, fully articulated motion vectors, in contrast to the rigid, unarticulated motion vectors associated with most tools.Category-specific disorder: a relatively greater impairment in retrieving information about members of one superordinate object category (e.g., animals) as compared with other categories following brain injury or diseaseIPS: intraparietal sulcusLO: lateral occipital cortexObject concept: memory representations of a class or category of objects. Necessary for numerous cognitive functions including identifying an object as a member of a specific category and drawing inferences about object propertiespMTG: posterior middle temporal gyruspSTS: posterior superior temporal sulcusRepetition suppression: decreased neural response associated with repeated presentation of an identical, or a semantically/conceptually related, stimulusSD: semantic dementiaSemantic memory: a large division of long-term memory containing knowledge about the world including facts, ideas, beliefs, and conceptsSemantic priming: a short-lasting facilitation in processing a stimulus due to the prior presentation of a semantically related stimulusTMS: transcranial magnetic stimulationVPMC: ventral premotor cortex. (shrink)

Argument and imagination are often interdependent. The Aesthetics of Argument is concerned with how this relationship may bear on argument's concern with truth, not just persuasion, and with the enhancement of understanding such interdependence may bring. The rationality of argument, conceived as the advancement of reasons for or against a claim, is not simply a matter of deductive validity. Whether arguments are relevant, have force, or look foolish cannot always be assessed in these terms. Martin Warner presents a series (...) of case studies which explore how analogy, metaphor, narrative, image, and symbol can be used in different ways to frame one domain in terms of another, and how criteria drawn from the study of imaginative literature may have a bearing on their truth-aptness. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall defend externalism for the contents of perceptual experience. A perceptual experience has representational properties; it presents the world as being a certain way. A visual experience, for example, might present the world to a subject as containing a surface with a certain shape, lying at a certain distance, in a certain direction; perhaps a square with sides about 30 cm, lying about one metre in front of the subject, in a direction about 20 degrees to (...) the left of straight ahead. (shrink)

Questions concerning the proof-theoretic strength of classical versus nonclassical theories of truth have received some attention recently. A particularly convenient case study concerns classical and nonclassical axiomatizations of fixed-point semantics. It is known that nonclassical axiomatizations in four- or three-valued logics are substantially weaker than their classical counterparts. In this paper we consider the addition of a suitable conditional to First-Degree Entailment—a logic recently studied by Hannes Leitgeb under the label HYPE. We show in particular that, by formulating the theory (...) PKF over HYPE, one obtains a theory that is sound with respect to fixed-point models, while being proof-theoretically on a par with its classical counterpart KF. Moreover, we establish that also its schematic extension—in the sense of Feferman—is as strong as the schematic extension of KF, thus matching the strength of predicative analysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.4 (2002) 629-633 [Access article in PDF] Phiroze Vasunia. The Gift of the Nile: Hellenizing Egypt from Aeschylus to Alexander. Classics and Contemporary Thought 8. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. xiv + 346 pp. Cloth, $45. Alexandre Tourraix. L'Orient, mirage grec: L'Orient du mythe et de l'épopée. Edited by Evelyne Geny. Paris: Presses Universitaires Franc-Comtoises, 2000. 165 pp. Paper, fi24.39. Professor (...) Tourraix is an optimistic reactionary. He sets out his aim with refreshing clarity. He seeks to challenge "l'orthodoxie provisoirement établie," which denies that the Greeks were "tributaires de la représentation du monde véhiculée par leur langue... indo-européenne." Tourraix accuses the "adepts" of this "orthodoxy" of citing Dumézil when he excluded Greece from the regularity of Indo-European patterns of thought, while they reject his basic trifunctional theory. This, Tourraix insists, is not a "doctrine" or an "ideological credo," but the result of a "rational elaboration" (15-16).Tourraix is not concerned with radical outsiders. He dismisses the whole of Said's Orientalism because of the latter's blunder in referring to the chorus of the Persae as women. He warns that Bernal should not be taken seriously because his works are not founded on a "scientific hypothesis but on ideological presuppositions" (75). Tourraix's opponents are the professional classicists, notably Martin West, Walter Burkert, and Ruth Edwards. These promote the idea of a substantial Southwest Asian influence on Greek civilization but are unconcerned with Egypt. In the terminology of this reviewer, Tourraix's polemic is not against the "Revised Ancient Model" but as a supporter of the "Extreme" version, he opposes the "Broad Aryan Model."Tourraix's two centers of concern are Troy and Thebes. Troy interests him as a marginal entity between Greek and Barbarian. He admits that pottery and Hittite texts indicate that there were Mycenaean influences in the Troad. On the other hand, he rightly points out that Homer Hellenized the Trojans more than evidence from other sources can sustain. It has also been impossible to correlate the Homeric version of the city's fall with the date and scale of the destructions of Troy VI, VIIa, and VIIb. Tourraix therefore follows the hypothesis of Paul Wathelet that the destruction described in the epics was not that of an unimportant settlement on the Dardanelles but was really that of the great Greek city of Thebes, which was undoubtedly destroyed in the thirteenth century B.C.E.This is just one example of Tourraix's general approach, which is not to accept things at face value but to probe more deeply. On the central theme of his [End Page 629] book, he agrees that many Greek myths and legends would suggest "Oriental" connections and origins and that much Greek iconography appears to be "Oriental" or Egyptian (75). But he knows that such symbols were devoid of content (23). Unfortunately for his scientific credentials, however, he frequently has to rely on the words probablement or peut-être to see Indo-European essences behind the Oriental forms (e.g., 22-23).Clearly Tourraix has always been concerned with Indo-European "cultures." He has published extensively on both Greeks and Persians and the relations between them. When looking at Greek culture, he sees three main indicators of "l'héritage indo-européen." The first is language: He takes a Whorfian view of its determining power and is unconcerned that less than 40 percent of the Greek vocabulary has known Indo-European cognates. The second indicator is trifunctionalism: Tourraix sees the Indo-European base whenever he encounters a triple. Three, however, is an attractive number to speakers of many languages. The Christian Trinity appears to have originated among Aramaic speakers, and Mesopotamian and Phoenician cities had the same tripartite division of the male inhabitants into citizen, resident alien, and slave that later occurred in the Greek poleis. Thus, besides its vagueness, trifunctionalism is not an... (shrink)

Funding policies for science are usually directed at supporting technological innovations. The im-pact and success of such policies depend crucially on how science and technology are connected to each other. I propose an “interactive view” of the relationship between basic science and technol-ogy development which comprises the following four claims: First, technological change derives from science but only in part. The local models used in accounting for technologically relevant phenomena contain theoretical and non-theoretical elements alike. Second, existing technologies and rules (...) of experience constitute another major repository of technological inventions. Third, technology dynamics is only weakly coupled to progress in basic science but it is closely related to science. There is a dependence of technological change on a more fundamental understanding, to be sure, but it is of an indirect and long-term character. Fourth, progress in basic research is some-times the effect of technological change. Technological change sometimes brings about increased theoretical understanding. (shrink)

A national worship and preaching consultant offers a provocative look at the core elements of Christian faith, articulating centrist, mainline Christianity in a ...

Scientific discoveries are often to some degree influenced by luck. Whether luck’s influence is at odds with common-sense intuitions about responsibility, is the central concern of the philosophical debate about moral luck. Do scientists acknowledge that luck plays a role in their work and – if so – do they consider it morally problematic? The present article discusses the results of four focus groups with scientists, who were asked about their views on luck in their fields and its moral implications. (...) The participants underscored circumstantial luck as a key dimension of luck in science. Nevertheless, most participants insisted that there are ways of executing ‘control’ in science: They believe that virtues and skills can increase one’s chances for success. The cultivation of these skills and virtues was considered a reasonable ground for pride. Prizes and rewards were rarely tied to personal desert, but instead to their societal function. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to discuss the ersatz theory of Lewis’s impossible worlds, point out its undeniable benefits and demonstrate its costs. Firstly, I present two approaches to Lewis’s impossible worlds taken as constructions out of possibilia. Secondly, I evaluate the proposals using the Lewisian criteria of success concerning the well defined conception of analysis. Although appealing, I do not find the proposals fully persuasive. Thirdly, I discuss the objection from an ad hoc distinction between possible and impossible (...) worlds. I conclude that the objection does not present a special problem for the Lewisian theory. Finally, I motivate a theory of extended modal realism, to wit, modal realism enriched with concrete impossibilia. (shrink)

Philosophy underwent a corresponding theatrical shift in the modern era, most importantly through the work of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Camus.

Resumen: El tema del presente artículo es la recepción y radicalización heideggeriana de la aporía del tiempo y el alma en Aristóteles en los textos del periodo conocido como la década fenomenológica. La cuestión acerca de si habría o no tiempo en caso de que no existiera el alma conduce a una difícil aporía que queda sin respuesta en el corpus aristotelicum. Heidegger piensa que el planteamiento aporético muestra que Aristóteles intuye ya que el Dasein mismo debe considerarse fundamentalmente tiempo. (...) Puesto que el tiempo es la determinación básica de la existencia humana, el Dasein sería imposible sin el tiempo. En otras palabras, no habría Dasein sin tiempo.: The subject of the present paper is Heidegger’s reception and radicalization of Aristotle’s aporia of time and soul in the texts of the period known as the phenomenological decade. The question about whether there would be time without the existence of soul leads to a difficult aporia which remains unanswered in the corpus aristotelicum. Nevertheless, Heidegger believes that this aporetical approach shows that Aristotle already sensed that Dasein itself is to be considered fundamentally as time. Since time is the basic determination of human existence, Dasein would be impossible without time. In other words, there would not be a Dasein without time. (shrink)

In these original and imaginative essays, delivered as the Tanner Lectures at the University of California, Berkeley in 2005, the philosopher Axel Honneth attempts to rescue the concept of reification by recasting it in terms of the philosophy of recognition he has been developing over the past two decades.

Ethics and Organizations provides a rich and valuable overview of an increasingly important issue for management and organizations in contemporary society. Debates about equal opportunities, environmental responsibility, consumer redress, and corporate governance have given ethics a prominent place in the study of organizations in their social and natural environments. Within the organization, new management styles that seek to energize employees by manipulating their beliefs have highlighted the moral-ethical principles at issue in contemporary management. At the same time, debates around postmodernism (...) and relativism have moved ethics to a new centrality in contemporary social theory. This volume addresses the questions that these and other developments raise for the study of management and organizations, from a multidisciplinary perspective. Ethics and Organizations will be invaluable to advanced-level students and academics engaged in analyzing the moral, political, and ethical dimensions of organization theory and organizational practice. (shrink)

In this open access book, Angela K. Martin thoroughly addresses what animal vulnerability is, how and why it matters from a moral point of view, and how it compares to human vulnerability. Vulnerability has been an important topic in bioethical discourse over the last forty years. Its predominant focus was on human vulnerability but recently, animal vulnerability has become a topic of philosophical investigation as well. She carefully explores both human and animal vulnerability, bringing out both their similarities and (...) their differences, and she shows how vulnerability discourse can be made fruitful for animal ethics. This is an open access book. (shrink)

L’auteur met en évidence la façon dont Thémistius, dans sa paraphrase, réorganise les parties du texte des lignes 71a17-b8 des Seconds Analytiques. Par une analyse détaillée du propos d’Aristote dans ces lignes, il montre que la réorganisation proposée par Thémistius est fidèle à l’esprit du texte aristotélicien, et s’appuie vraisemblablement sur des indices externes dont disposait le paraphraste.

Boarding school is a major educational option for many students (e.g., students living in remote areas, or whose parents are working interstate or overseas, etc.). This study explored the motivation, engagement, and achievement of boarding and day students who are educated in the same classrooms and receive the same syllabus and instruction from the same teachers (thus a powerful research design to enable unique comparisons). Among 2,803 students (boardingn= 481; dayn= 2,322) from 6 Australian high schools and controlling for background (...) attributes and personality, we found predominant parity between boarding and day students in their motivation, engagement, and achievement. We also found that classroom-average motivation, engagement, and achievement was not significantly affected by the number of boarders (relative to day students) in the classroom. In addition, the effects of boarding were generally not moderated by students’ background or personality attributes. We conclude that boarders have academic opportunities and outcomes that are comparable to their day student counterparts. Implications for students, teachers, and parents are discussed. (shrink)

La danse contemporaine ne cesse d’interroger le corps dans sa prétendue unité et identité substantielle, organique, mécanique et signifiante. Elle déconstruit les conceptions et les gestions du corps. Par cela elle révèle les dimensions et les puissances ignorées du corps. Nous proposons, en nous appuyant sur les travaux fondateurs de M. Bernard, de suivre une ligne conceptuelle des déconstructions du corps susceptible d’éclairer les projets esthétiques de certains chorégraphes contemporains.