French thinkers have revolutionized European thought about knowledge, religion, politics, and society. Delivering a comprehensive history of thought in France from the Middle Ages to the present, this book follows themes and developments of thought across the centuries. It provides readers with studies of both systematic thinkers and those who operate less systematically, through essays or fragments, and places them all in their many contexts. Informed by up-to-date research, these accessible chapters are written by prominent experts in their fields who (...) investigate key concepts in non-technical language. Chapters feature treatments of specific thinkers as individuals including Voltaire, Rousseau, Descartes and Derrida, but also more general movements and schools of thought from humanism to liberalism, via the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Marxism, and feminism. Furthermore, the influence of gender, race, empire and slavery are investigated to offer a broad and fulfilling account of French thought throughout the ages. (shrink)

Résumé Les théologiens jansénistes s’évertuent à réconcilier la thèse selon laquelle l’homme est assujetti à une nécessité générale de pécher avec le libre arbitre. Jansénius affirme que, malgré la nécessité générale, nous avons la liberté d’indifférence en ce qui concerne les actes particuliers ; mais il prétend aussi (en dépit d’Aristote) que la concupiscence, source des actes particuliers, se ramène à une forme de contrainte. Arnauld se contente d’affirmer la compatibilité de la nécessité générale de pécher avec l’indifférence, tandis que (...) Nicole s’attaque à la conception de la concupiscence comme une forme de contrainte. (shrink)

This article explores the vocabulary of knowing in Descartes’ Meditations. It offers a detailed and in part sequential examination of his use of cognitio and scien...

Abstract:The central problems of political philosophy (e.g., legitimate authority, distributive justice) mirror the central problems of business ethics. The question naturally arises: should political theories be applied to problems in business ethics? If a version of egalitarianism is the correct theory of justice for states, for example, does it follow that it is the correct theory of justice for businesses? If states should be democratically governed by their citizens, should businesses be democratically managed by their employees? Most theorists who have (...) considered these questions, including John Rawls inPolitical Liberalism, and Robert Phillips and Joshua Margolis in a 1999 article, have said “no.” They claim that states and businesses are different kinds of entities, and hence require different theories of justice. I challenge this claim. While businesses differ from states, the difference is one of degree, not one of kind. Business ethics has much to learn from political philosophy. (shrink)

Online retailers are using advances in data collection and computing technologies to “personalize” prices, i.e., offer goods for sale to shoppers at their reservation prices, or the highest price they are willing to pay. In this paper, I offer a criticism of this practice. I begin by putting online personalized pricing in context. It is not something entirely new, but rather a kind of price discrimination, a familiar pricing practice. I then offer a fairness-based argument against it. When an online (...) retailer personalizes prices, it competes unfairly for the social surplus created by a transaction. I defend this argument against objections, and offer a simple remedy: online retailers should either disclose that they are personalizing prices, or stop doing so. (shrink)

From the late sixteenth to the late seventeenth centuries, French writing is especially concerned with analysing human nature. The ancient ethical vision of man's nature and goal survives, even, to some extent, in Descartes. But it is put into question especially by the revival of St Augustine's thought, which focuses on the contradictions and disorders of human desires and aspirations. Analyses of behaviour display a powerful suspicion of appearances. Human beings are increasingly seen as motivated by self-love: they are driven (...) by the desire for their own advantage, and take a narcissistic delight in their own image. Moral and religious writers re-emphasize the traditional imperative of self-knowledge, but in such a way as to suggest the difficulties of knowing oneself. Operating with the Cartesian distinction between mind and body, they emphasize the imperceptible influence of bodily processes on our thought and attitudes. They analyse human beings' ignorance of their own motives and qualities, and the illusions under which they live their lives. Their critique of human behaviour is no less searching than that of writers who have broken with traditional religious morality, such as Hobbes and Spinoza. A wide range of authors is studied, some well-known, others much less so: the abstract and general analyses of philosophers and theologians are juxtaposed with the less systematic and more concrete investigations of writers like Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, not to mention the theatre of Corneille, Molière, and Racine. (shrink)

Desmond Clarke adopts a broad understanding of the term ‘philosophy,’ informed by close attention to historical context. He discusses the limitations of early modern philosophy as an academic discipline, plausibly connecting its tendency to conservatism with the fact that philosophy teachers were generally recent graduates, employed for quite short periods, and thus ill-equipped to develop the subject. On the other hand, as he observes, “what is now described as philosophical reasoning or analysis was widely distributed in the publications of lawyers, (...) theologians, natural philosophers, and political commentators”. This obliges him to cast his net very wide, far beyond the range of authors one would... (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Debates about the ethics of executive compensation are dominated by familiar themes. Many writers consider whether the amount of pay CEOs receive is too large—relative to firm performance, foreign CEO pay, or employee pay. Many others consider whether the process by which CEOs are paid is compromised by weak or self-serving boards of directors. This paper examines the issue from a new perspective. I focus on the dutiesexecutives themselveshave with respect totheir owncompensation. I argue that CEOs’ fiduciary duties place a (...) moral limit on how much compensation they can accept, and hence seek in negotiation, from their firms. Accepting excessive compensation leaves the beneficiaries of their duties (e.g., shareholders) worse off, and thus is inconsistent with observing those duties. (shrink)

This book is a study of Blaise Pascal's defence of Christian belief in the Pensees. Michael Moriarty aims to expound--and in places to criticize--what he argues is a coherent and original apologetic strategy. Setting out the basic philosophical and theological presuppositions of Pascal's project, the present volume draws the distinction between convictions attained by reason and those inspired by God-given faith. It also presents Pascal's view of the contradictions within human nature, between the 'wretchedness' and the 'greatness'. His (...) mind-body dualism and his mechanistic conception of non-human animals are discussed. Pascal invokes the biblical story of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin as the only credible explanation of these contradictions. His analysis of human occupations as powered by the twin desire to escape from painful thoughts and to gratify one's vanity is subjected to critical examination, as is his conception of the self and self-love. Pascal argues that just as Christianity propounds the only explanation for the human condition, so it offers the only kind of happiness that would satisfy our deepest longings. He thus reasons that we have an interest in investigating its truth-claims as rooted in the Bible and in history. The closing chapters of this book discuss Pascal's view of Christian morality and the famous 'wager' argument for opting in favour of Christian belief. (shrink)

This book deals with three major French thinkers of the seventeenth century, Descartes, Pascal, and Malebranche. It examines their influential critical accounts of the impact of the body and of social relationships on experience, and the need to correct this by reference to metaphysical or religious truth.

This book analyses the use of the crucial concept of 'taste' in the works of five major seventeenth-century French authors, Méré, Saint Evremond, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère and Boileau. It combines close readings of important texts with a thoroughgoing political analysis of seventeenth-century French society in terms of class and gender. Dr Moriarty shows that far from being timeless and universal, the term 'taste' is culture-specific, shifting according to the needs of a writer and his social group. The notion (...) of 'taste' not only helped to shape a new dominant culture, but also registered the conflicts within that culture between a view of taste that presupposted the values of 'polite society' as an exclusive (though not necessarily aristocratic) group, and a view that stressed the value of the classical-humanist tradition as a source of standards ratified by a broader public. this study sheds light not only on the central concept, but also on the individual authors discussed and on the norms of French classical literature in general. (shrink)

Disguised Vices analyses the underlying logic of these arguments, and investigates what is at stake in them.

Many firms keep pay secret. They do not make information about what their employees are paid available inside or outside of the firm, i.e. to other employees or to the public at large. Indeed, many firms discourage their employees from, or sanction them for, disclosing their pay. Against this, I argue that there are good moral reasons for firms to be transparent about pay. Pay transparency prevents injustice, promotes autonomy, and increases efficiency. After presenting the positive case for pay transparency, (...) I defend it against objections, including the most common reasons firms give for keeping pay secret. (shrink)

[Editor's Note: The following new entry by Jeffrey Moriarty replaces the former entryon this topic by the previous author.], A business is a productive organization—an organization whosepurpose is to create goods and services for sale, usually at a profit.Business is also an activity. One entity “does business” with another when itexchanges a good or service for valuable consideration. Businessethics can thus be understood as the study of the ethical dimensionsof productive organizations and commercial activities. This includesethical analyses of the (...) production, distribution, marketing, sale, andconsumption of goods and services., Questions in business ethics are important and relevant to everyone.This is because almost all of us “do business”—i.e.,engage in a commercial transaction—almost every day. Moreover,many of us spend a major portion of our lives engaged in, or preparingto engage in, productive activity, on our own or as part of productiveorganizations. Business activity shapes the world we live in,sometimes for good and sometimes for ill., Business ethics is a huge field. Philosophers from Aristotle to Rawlshave defended positions on topics which can be understood as part ofbusiness ethics. At present, there are at least five journals devotedto the field, and work in business ethicsappears in mainstream philosophy and social science journals aswell., This entry summarizes important research on central questions inbusiness ethics, including: In whose interests should firms bemanaged? Who should manage them? What do firms owe their workers, andwhat do workers owe their firms? What moral rules should guidefirms’ engagement with customers? Should firms try to solvesocial problems? What responsibility do they have for the behavior oftheir suppliers? What role should firms play in the political process?Given the vastness of the field, of necessity certain questions inbusiness ethics are not addressed here. (shrink)

Consumers spend billions of dollars per year on homeopathic products. But there is powerful evidence that these products don’t work, i.e., they are not medically effective. Should homeopathic products be for sale? I give reason for thinking that the answer is ‘no.’ It has been suggested that the sale of homeopathic products involves deception. This might be so in some cases, but the problem is simpler: it is that these products don’t do what people buy them to do. More precisely, (...) homeopathic products don’t meet the “desire-satisfaction condition,” according to which products for sale in markets should satisfy the desires that people buy them to satisfy. I defend my view against objections, and conclude by acknowledging some of the practical difficulties of banning products people want to buy. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

Radical ecology typically brings to mind media images of ecological activists standing before loggers' saws, staging anti-nuclear marches, and confronting polluters on the high seas. Yet for more than twenty years, the activities of organizations such as the Greens and Earth First! have been influenced by a diverse, less-publicized group of radical ecological philosophers. It is their work—the philosophical underpinnings of the radical ecological movement—that is the subject of _Contesting Earth's Future_. The book offers a much-needed, balanced appraisal of radical (...) ecology's principles, goals, and limitations. Michael Zimmerman critically examines the movement's three major branches—deep ecology, social ecology, and ecofeminism. He also situates radical ecology within the complex cultural and political terrain of the late twentieth century, showing its relation to Martin Heidegger's anti-technological thought, 1960s counterculturalism, and contemporary theories of poststructuralism and postmodernity. An early and influential ecological thinker, Zimmerman is uniquely qualified to provide a broad overview of radical environmentalism and delineate its various schools of thought. He clearly describes their defining arguments and internecine disputes, among them the charge that deep ecology is an anti-modern, proto-fascist ideology. Reflecting both the movement's promise and its dangers, this book is essential reading for all those concerned with the worldwide ecological crisis. (shrink)

"Writing in a lively and refreshingly clear American English, Zimmerman provides an uncompromisingly honest and judicious account... of Heidegger’s views on technology and his involvement with National Socialism.... One of the most important books on Heidegger in recent years." —John D. Caputo "... superb... " —Thomas Sheehan, The New York Review of Books "... thorough and complex... " —Choice "... excellent guide to Heidegger as eco-philosopher." —Radical Philosophy "... engrossing, rich in substance... makes clear Heidegger's importance for the issue of (...) technology, ethics, and politics." —Religious Studies Review The relation between Martin Heidegger’s understanding of technology and his affiliation with and conception of National Socialism is the leading idea of this fascinating and revealing book. Zimmerman shows that the key to the relation between Heidegger’s philosophy and his politics was his concern with the nature of working and production. (shrink)

We are purposive agents; but we—adult humans in a broadly modern world—are more than that. We are reflective about our motivation. We form prior plans and policies that organize our activity over time. And we see ourselves as agents who persist over time and who begin, develop, and then complete temporally extended activities and projects. Any reasonably complete theory of human action will need in some way to advert to this trio of features—to our reflectiveness, our planfulness, and our conception (...) of our agency as temporally extended. These are, further, features that have great significance for the kinds of lives we can live. For these two reasons I will say that these are among the core features of human agency. A theory of human action needs to say what these core features consist in and how they are related to each other. And such a theory needs also to clarify the relation between these core features of our agency and the possibility that we are fully embedded in an event causal order. (shrink)

These are replies to the discussions by Kirk Ludwig, Elizabeth Pacherie, Björn Petersson, Abraham Roth, and Thomas Smith of Michael E. Bratman, Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together (Oxford University Press, 2014).

ABSTRACT:The purpose of this article is to review literature that is relevant to the social scientific study of ethics and leadership, as well as outline areas for future study. We first discuss ethical leadership and then draw from emerging research on “dark side” organizational behavior to widen the boundaries of the review to includeunethical leadership. Next, three emerging trends within the organizational behavior literature are proposed for a leadership and ethics research agenda: 1) emotions, 2) fit/congruence, and 3) identity/identification. We (...) believe each shows promise in extending current thinking. The review closes with discussion of important issues that are relevant to the advancement of research on leadership and ethics. (shrink)

Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these (...) theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert. (shrink)

There is a deeply entrenched view in philosophy and physics, the closed systems view, according to which isolated systems are conceived of as fundamental. On this view, when a system is under the influence of its environment this is described in terms of a coupling between it and a separate system which taken together are isolated. We argue against this view, and in favor of the alternative open systems view, for which systems interacting with their environment are conceived of as (...) fundamental, and the environment's influence is represented via the dynamical equations that govern the system's evolution. Taking quantum theories of closed and open systems as our case study, and considering three alternative notions of fundamentality: (i) ontic fundamentality, (ii) epistemic fundamentality, and (iii) explanatory fundamentality, we argue that the open systems view is fundamental, and that this has important implications for the philosophy of physics, the philosophy of science, and for metaphysics. (shrink)

Thus far, we know much more about the significant outcomes of perceived ethical leadership than we do about its antecedents. In this study, we focus on multiple types of ethical role models as antecedents of perceived ethical leadership. According to social learning theory, role models facilitate the acquisition of moral and other types of behavior. Yet, we do not know whether having had ethical role models influences follower perceptions of one’s ethical leadership and, if so, what kinds of role models (...) are important. We conducted a field study, surveying supervisors and their subordinates to examine the relationship between three types of ethical role models and ethical leadership: the leader’s childhood role models, career mentors, and top managers. We found that having had an ethical role model during the leader’s career was positively related to subordinate-rated ethical leadership. As expected, this effect was moderated by leader age, such that the relationship between career mentoring and ethical leadership was stronger for older leaders. Leader age also moderated the relationship between childhood models and ethical leadership ratings, such that having had childhood ethical role models was more strongly and positively related to ethical leadership for younger leaders. We found no effect for top management ethical role models. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

This book challenges the dominant approach to problems of justice in global normative theory and offers a radical alternative designed to transform our thinking about what kind of problem injustice is and how political theorists might do better in understanding and addressing it. It argues that the dominant approach, ideal moral theory (IMT), takes a fundamentally wrong-headed approach to the problem of justice. IMT seeks to work out what an ideally just society would look like, and only then outlines our (...) moral obligations in realizing that ideal. In other words, it ignores the realities of everyday politics. As Michael Goodhart asserts, IMT postpones engagement with actually existing injustices and distorts our understanding of them, and it normalizes many problematic features of our world. On the other hand, the leading alternatives to IMT struggle to make sense of the role values play in politics. This book sees justice as an ideology and develops an innovative bifocal theoretical framework for making sense of it. This framework provides two complementary perspectives on justice: a theoretical perspective that situates competing ideological claims about justice in a broader political context and a partisan perspective that evaluates the structure and coherence of particular conceptions of justice. As opposed to IMT, it focuses on barriers to justice and advocates an activist political theory that takes sides in political struggles against injustice. Goodhart argues that theorists can help to generate the countervailing power necessary for social transformation through the work of articulation, translation, and mapping, work which contributes to a more comprehensive social science of injustice. (shrink)

I [try] to understand identification by appeal to phenomena of deciding to treat, and of treating, a desire of one's as reason-giving in one's practical reasoning, planning, and action. Is identification, so understood, "fundamental," as Frankfurt says, "to any philosophy of mind and of action"? Well, we have seen reason to include in our model of intentional agency such phenomena of deciding to treat, and of treating, certain of one's desires as reason-giving. Identification, at bottom, consists in such phenomena — (...) or so I have proposed. Given that such phenomena are important in our practical lives, we may agree with Frankfurt that identification is, in this sense, "fundamental.". (shrink)

The Strange Situation procedure was developed by Ainsworth two decades agoas a means of assessing the security of infant-parent attachment. Users of the procedureclaim that it provides a way of determining whether the infant has developed species-appropriate adaptive behavior as a result of rearing in an evolutionary appropriate context, characterized by a sensitively responsive parent. Only when the parent behaves in the sensitive, species-appropriate fashion is the baby said to behave in the adaptive or secure fashion. Furthermore, when infants are (...) observed repeatedly in the Strange Situation,the pattern of behavior is said to be highly similar, and this pattern is said to predict the infants' future behavior in a diverse array of contexts. After an exhaustive review of the literature, it is shown that these popular claims are empirically unsupported in their strong form, and that the interpretations in terms of biological adaptationare misguided. There is little reliable evidence about the specific dimensions of parental behavior that affect Strange Situation behavior, although there does appear to be some relationship between these constructs. Temporal stability in security of attachment ishigh only when there is stability in family and caretaking circumstances. Likewise, patterns of Strange Situation behavior only have substantial predictive validity in similarly stable families. Implications for future research and theorizing — particularly as they relate to the use of evolutionary biology in psychological theory — are discussed. (shrink)

Minimizing the costs that others impose upon oneself and upon those in whom one has a fitness stake, such as kin and allies, is a key adaptive problem for many organisms. Our ancestors regularly faced such adaptive problems (including homicide, bodily harm, theft, mate poaching, cuckoldry, reputational damage, sexual aggression, and the infliction of these costs on one's offspring, mates, coalition partners, or friends). One solution to this problem is to impose retaliatory costs on an aggressor so that the aggressor (...) and other observers will lower their estimates of the net benefits to be gained from exploiting the retaliator in the future. We posit that humans have an evolved cognitive system that implements this strategy – deterrence – which we conceptualize as a revenge system. The revenge system produces a second adaptive problem: losing downstream gains from the individual on whom retaliatory costs have been imposed. We posit, consequently, a subsidiary computational system designed to restore particular relationships after cost-imposing interactions by inhibiting revenge and motivating behaviors that signal benevolence for the harmdoer. The operation of these systems depends on estimating the risk of future exploitation by the harmdoer and the expected future value of the relationship with the harmdoer. We review empirical evidence regarding the operation of these systems, discuss the causes of cultural and individual differences in their outputs, and sketch their computational architecture. (shrink)

Although computation and the science of physical systems would appear to be unrelated, there are a number of ways in which computational and physical concepts can be brought together in ways that illuminate both. This volume examines fundamental questions which connect scholars from both disciplines: is the universe a computer? Can a universal computing machine simulate every physical process? What is the source of the computational power of quantum computers? Are computational approaches to solving physical problems and paradoxes always fruitful? (...) Contributors from multiple perspectives reflecting the diversity of thought regarding these interconnections address many of the most important developments and debates within this exciting area of research. Both a reference to the state of the art and a valuable and accessible entry to interdisciplinary work, the volume will interest researchers and students working in physics, computer science, and philosophy of science and mathematics. (shrink)