That a science of human conduct is possible, that what any man may do even in moments of the most sober and careful reflection can be understood and explained, has seemed to many a philosopher to cast doubt upon our common view that any human action can ever be said to be truly free. This book, first published in 1961, into crucially important issues that are often ignored in the familiar arguments for and against the possibility of free action. These (...) issues are brought to light and examined in some detail. (shrink)

In this volume, a distinguished philosopher and moral rights theorist examines important changes that have occurred in our thinking about rights since first mention of them was made in early modern times. His inquiry is framed by an opening question and a concluding response. The question is whether the Greeks had any conception of a moral right. Some argue that they did not, on the ground that they had no word for a right. Others claim that they did, since they (...) employed certain locutions, the equivalents of which in our language are tied to some notion of a moral right. Professor Melden reviews in detail some of the most important historical conceptions of rights and examines serious questions raised by the fact that there have been striking changes in our thinking about rights. His discussion elucidates the place of moral rights in the broader network of moral concepts, along with the role they should play in our moral lives. Among the fundamental issues raised and discussed are those concerning the ways in which we are to understand various sorts of rights, the relation of special moral rights to our basic human rights, the now familiar claim that there are animal rights, the nature of moral progress, and the dream of a moral science. (shrink)

I Introduction i Actions which otherwise would be arbitrary or capricious may be quite reasonable when they are in fact cases in which rights are being ...

In this volume, a distinguished philosopher and moral rights theorist examines important changes that have occurred in our thinking about rights since first mention of them was made in early modern times. His inquiry is framed by an opening question and a concluding response. The question is whether the Greeks had any conception of a moral right. Some argue that they did not, on the ground that they had no word for a right. Others claim that they did, since they (...) employed certain locutions, the equivalents of which in our language are tied to some notion of a moral right. Professor Melden reviews in detail some of the most important historical conceptions of rights and examines serious questions raised by the fact that there have been striking changes in our thinking about rights. His discussion elucidates the place of moral rights in the broader network of moral concepts, along with the role they should play in our moral lives. Among the fundamental issues raised and discussed are those concerning the ways in which we are to understand various sorts of rights, the relation of special moral rights to our basic human rights, the now familiar claim that there are animal rights, the nature of moral progress, and the dream of a moral science. (shrink)

Generosity is usually reserved for those to whom we are bound by friendship or warm affection; but even where such ties are absent an effective equivalent is our recognition that others, even casual acquaintances, have a right to these same benefits. If warm affection is joined with the regard that men of moral integrity have for such rights, the disposition to confer such benefits upon others is almost always efficacious. Unfortunately, matters are not always so neatly aligned or so simply (...) resolved. The goods at our disposal are in too short supply to permit us adequately to bestow them whenever they are needed, even upon those to whom we are bound by love and affection; and not infrequently those who are entitled to these goods are persons to whom we are not warmly disposed. In any case our limited opportunities and abilities, together with the unexpected and even unpredictable circumstances that defeat even our best intentions, sometimes compel us to choose which of two competing rights, both of which engage our moral concerns, to honor by what we do—or perhaps to choose between a right and a quite different but no less important sort of consideration which, as reasonable agents, we must also respect—hoping that in acting as we do we shall make the best of an unfortunate situation that has been thrust upon us. Inevitably, even though only occasionally, in the complex and even unforeseeable circumstances in which we conduct our affairs with each other, there arises a characteristic play of rights in which one gives way or yields in its moral force in the face of more compelling considerations. (shrink)

Although selections - have been arranged chronologically, there are important omis sions. The most unfortunate of these is Spinoza.

In the summer of 1953 a lecture-course organized by the British Council was given at Peterhouse, Cambridge. The Faculty of Moral Science were responsible for the programme of lectures and discussions, and Miss Margaret Master man and Dr. Theodore Red path were appointed by the Faculty as joint directors. The lectures must have been well received by the teachers of philosophy who attended and participated in the discussions— representatives from the Continent, the United States and even China were on hand; (...) and the suggestion arose quite naturally that they be published in a single volume. However, some of the lecturers wished to redraft the papers they had read and hence the essays now presented, under the editorship of C. A. Mace, in the volume British Philosophy in the Mid-Century, A Cambridge Symposium are in a number of instances dressed up and greatly expanded versions of the lectures actually given. Further, it is worth noting that the essay by G. E. Moore was written specifically for this volume and is based on a discussion held with some students who attended the sessions at Peterhouse. Thus it is that the papers now published vary greatly in length from the welcome ten pages contributed by G. E. Moore to the seventy-nine pages from Miss Master man. This disparity is, of course, an anomaly in a volume explicitly designed to reflect trends in very recent British philosophy and to convey, to those relatively unfamiliar with it, some reliable picture of its condition at mid-century. But this volume records a present-day Cambridge symposium and as such it must in some measure reflect quite local interests and conditions. However, most of the contributors are very well known and the essays now presented to the public contain a good deal that will interest and profit the reader. (shrink)

What are the objects of thought? To consider a familiar case, may we assert that the proposition “I am thinking of a unicorn” entails that there is some object which is being thought of? Theories of subsistent objects provide an affirmative answer and seem to be based on the consideration that we are thinking of something when we think of a unicorn. Otherwise, to paraphrase G. E. Moore's well known statement of the argument, we would be thinking of the same (...) thing whether we thought of a unicorn or a griffen, namely, nothing. But, as G. E. Moore has shown, subsistence theories fail to distinguish between the logical and grammatical forms of such statements as “I am thinking of a unicorn” and “I am hunting a lion”. The latter is of the form · φx · Ψx; the former is not since it does not assert that the property of being a unicorn and the property of thought of by me both belong to something. But the problem that suggests itself is the nature of the contention that something is being thought of when, for example, we think of a unicorn. To begin with, is there no acceptable alternative to the various forms of the theory of subsistent objects according to which it would be correct to say that the proposition “I am thinking of a unicorn” entails the proposition “·x is being thought of”? And if saying that we are thinking of something, when we think of a unicorn, does not mean that there exists something that is being thought of, what is the force of the contention that we are thinking of something? (shrink)