Character and Culture presents an integrated account of the nature of character and a discussion of the various ways in which it is influenced, for better and worse, by social and political institutions. Through a careful analysis of virtue and vice, Hunt argues that character traits consist, in part but very crucially, of certain ideas on which the individual acts. Institutions such as commerce and private gift exchange, says Hunt, can encourage people to possess positive character traits—not by offering bribes (...) or threats, but by shaping our vision of the importance of the goods that are pursued by human action and of the limits of right conduct. He is less optimistic about the effects of democracy on character, suggesting that they depend on whether or not the power of the voters to control one another is constrained by institutions that protect individual rights. (shrink)

The empirical success of particle physics rests largely on an approximation method: perturbation theory. Yet even within perturbative quantum field theory, there are a variety of different formulations. This variety teaches us that reformulating approximation methods can provide a tremendous source of progress in science. Along with enabling the solution of otherwise intractable problems, reformulations clarify what we need to know to obtain solutions, which can in turn make previously hidden properties manifest. To develop these lessons, I compare and contrast (...) three compatible formulations of perturbative QFT: (i) elementary perturbation theory, (ii) the method of Feynman diagrams, and (iii) a recent reformulation known as on-shell recursion. I propose and defend a novel account of what it means to ‘make a property manifest,’ based on the inferences that a formulation warrants. (shrink)

‘Medically unexplained symptoms’, through the lens of the biopsychosocial model, are understood in mainstream psy disciplines and related literature as a primarily psychosocial phenomenon perpetuated by ‘dysfunctional’ psychology on the part of people labelled with such. Biopsychosocial discourse and practice in this field, underpinned by little empirical foundation and lacking theoretical coherency, are associated with harms sustained by people labelled with MUS. Yet, little attention is paid to the psychology of social actors and institutions whose practice and policy derives from (...) biopsychosocial theorising, or whose vested interests produce such theorising. This article contends that lack of reflexivity among psy practitioners and other social actors on individual, institutional and structural levels furthers biopsychosocial hegemony and contributes to harms. Non-reflexive behaviour on the part of practitioners within clinical and ‘therapeutic’ encounters and on the part of social actors within institutions and broader power structures is examined, and possible psychological underpinnings of non-reflexivity are explored. Notably, the concept of gain, drawn from dominant discourse around MUS, is applied broadly to explore what might be gained from eschewing reflexivity and from adhering to biopsychosocial narratives. Implications for practice, supervision, training and research are discussed, notably highlighting a need for critical reflexivity in all domains. (shrink)

Can mystics intuit something of what modern physicists calculate? And if so, how? The question of the relation between the classical mysticisms and modern science is approached in Part I in terms of the multiple forms and definitions of 'truth value'. Intuition/epiphany, pragmatism, coherence, and correspondence are considered as forms of truth that have also been proposed for unitive mystical experience. Since 'correspondence' or 'representation' has been the definition at the core of modern science, it in particular is approached by (...) combining Lakoff and Johnson on the roots of all abstract knowledge in physical metaphor and Gibson on the ecological array of perception as the template from which such metaphors must be drawn. A series of similarities between the maximally inclusive metaphors underlying unitive mystical experience and cosmological physics, as abstracted from an ecological array already resonant with multiple levels of physical reality, suggests a basis for the correspondence between these otherwise distinct cognitive domains. Part II extends this approach to widely posited cross cultural values of spiritual or mystical realization, in terms of gratitude, compassion, faith, and inner freedom. When fully embodied as forms of personal conduct, these are also ultimately derivable from the openness and flow patternings of the ecological array itself. The possibility that the more abstract spiritual values of the major world mysticisms exemplify not only revelatory and pragmatic forms of truth, but are also broadly correspondent with both the principles of immediate concrete perception and modern physics, may eventually allow a contemporary re- formulation of the microcosm-macrocosm unities basic to traditional cultures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Co-parents who differ in their ideal child rearing policies should compromise, argues Marcus William Hunt. Josh Milburn and Carlo Alvaro dispute this when it comes to veganism. Milburn argues that veganism is a matter of justice and that to compromise over justice is (typically) impermissible. I suggest that compromise over justice is often permissible, and that compromise over justice may be required by justice itself. Alvaro offers aesthetic, gustatory, and virtue-based arguments for ethical veganism, showing that veganism involves sensibilities (...) and virtues, and argues that veganism involves a belief. Alvaro takes this to show that parental compromise is impermissible. I suggest that Alvaro’s arguments are implausible and that the shaping of a child’s sensibilities and virtues is an apt matter for parental compromise. (shrink)

Ivor Hunt; II—Value-Concepts and Conceptual Truth, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 23–44, https://doi.org/10.109.

In _Ecce Homo_ Friedrich Nietzsche calls himself "the first immoralist" and adds "that makes me the annihilator _par excellence_". Lester Hunt examines this and other radical claims in order to show that Nietzsche does have a coherent ethical and political philosophy. He uses Nietzsche's writings as a starting point for a critique of a wider, contemporary ethical project - one that should inform our lives as well as our thoughts.

Western civilization has probably reached an impasse, expressed as a crisis on all fronts: economic, technological, environmental and political. This is experienced on the cultural level as a moral crisis or an ethical deficit. Somehow, the means we have always assumed as being adequate to the task of achieving human welfare, health and peace, are failing us. Have we lost sight of the primacy of human ends? Governments still push for economic growth and technological advances, but many are now asking: (...) economic growth for what, technology for what? Health care and nursing are caught up in the same inversion of human priorities. Professionals, such as nurses and midwives, need to take on social responsibilities and a collective civic voice, and play their part in a moral regeneration of society. This involves carrying civic rights and duties into the workplace. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Slaves and the Generals of ArginusaePeter HuntIn the second half of 406 B.C. the Athenians made two shocking decisions. They freed the slaves who had fought in the battle of Arginusae and gave them citizenship, and they condemned to death their victorious generals. I suggest that these two events were related. Specifically, I would like to argue, first, that the competition for rowers to man the huge navies (...) of this period had extended even to slaves. The promise of freedom was intended to motivate the slaves: the grant of Athenian citizenship was an attempt to keep them rowing for Athens rather than deserting and ending up in the enemy's navy. Second, I would like to consider the trial of the generals in the context of this costly, divisive, and controversial policy. A priori considerations, historical parallels, and a few admittedly tenuous pieces of direct evidence suggest that their policy of rewarding the slaves contributed to the generals' unpopularity that made them so vulnerable to prosecution.Slaves to CitizensPassages in Aristophanes' Frogs and a scholiast's quotation of Hellanicus tell us that the slaves who fought in the battle of Arginusae were given freedom and citizenship. Most historians believe that the Athenians freed these slaves,1 but, given Athenian exclusiveness-manifest in Pericles' citizenship law-some doubt that they would have allowed a large group [End Page 359] of slaves to become citizens.2 The evidence, however, indicates that this was exactly what happened.Frogs won first prize at the Lenaean festival of 405-406, about six months after the Athenian naval victory at Arginusae. Early in the play, Dionysus and his slave Xanthias are traveling to Hades. When Dionysus mocks Xanthias for complaining about the load he is carrying, Xanthias exclaims:Dash it all, why wasn't I in that naval battle? Then I could really and truly tell you to go to blazes!(Ar. Ran. 33)3Fighting in the naval battle would have freed Xanthias from carrying Dionysus' baggage and allowed him to tell his master off. A bit later, Charon refuses to ferry Xanthias to Hades:I don't take slaves, unless they fought in the life-or-death naval battle.(190-91)4Again, slaves who have fought in a naval battle are treated differently from other slaves. From these passages alone, one might guess that the slaves who fought in some naval battle-Arginusae being the most recent and probable one-were given their freedom: they did not have to serve their masters and could ride with Charon rather than walking around the lake to get to Hades.Ian Worthington argues against this, the traditional reading of these lines. Xanthias' regret at not serving in the naval battle (33) is not that he would be then be free, but rather that then he would be dead and not forced to serve Dionysus.5 Aristophanes, however, was addressing an [End Page 360] audience many of whom had either fought at Arginusae or had relatives who had. We may associate Arginusae primarily with the deaths of the unrescued crews, but in 405 Arginusae was considered a successful relief mission and a great victory. Aristophanes was addressing the living victors, for whom "to fight at the naval battle" could not serve as shorthand for "to die." Worthington's reading of lines 190-91 is also less convincing than the traditional interpretation. He claims that those who "fought in the life-or-death naval battle" are the men whose drowning after the battle gave rise to the trial of the generals. The text gives no hint or suggestion that Charon is talking about this subset of the sailors who fought in the battle. Rather, Charon refers to another subset of those who fought in the battle, the slaves: "I don't take slaves, unless...." So we should stay with the traditional interpretation and the scholia to Frogs 33, which, although not an independent source, accords with our reading of Aristophanes: ("[I]n the previous year, in the archonship of Antigenes, the Athenians... won a naval battle around Arginusae and freed the slaves who had fought along with them").6Our first evidence for... (shrink)

Mary E. Hunt agrees with Rosemary Radford Ruether’s conclusion that women-church and women priests ‘both have their place in a vision of renewed church and renewed priestly ministry.’ She observes that the ‘either/or’ frame plays into what many feminists have tried to avoid with integrity, namely, setting progressive Catholic women against one another in the public arena. The writer explores the evolving relationship between and among the various feminist individuals and groups that are engaged in this work. She describes how (...) they co-operate to transform kyriarchal Roman Catholicism and meet the needs of the world. (shrink)

Daniel Callahan has argued that economic and social benefits would result from a policy of withholding medical treatments which prolong life in persons over a certain age. He claims 'the real goal of medicine' is to conquer death and prolong life with the use of technology, regardless of the age and quality of life of the patient, and this has been responsible for the escalation of health care expenditure. Callahan's proposal is based on economic rationalism but there is little evidence (...) to suggest that substantial economic savings could be achieved. Moreover, his argument raises serious moral objections. A policy of withholding treatments from members of a social group involves elements of compulsion and discrimination, both of which would intrude on the doctor-patient relationship, undermine the autonomy of elderly patients, and invoke the slippery slope towards involuntary forms of euthanasia. Life-death decisions should be based on more than the one criterion of age, and take account of more relevant factors such as the patient's usual state of well-being, her/his expressed wishes, informed consent and the type of illness. Any move to the implementation and enforcement of the policy Callahan recommends would be rejected by health professionals and the public. (shrink)

While pharmaceutical industry involvement in producing, interpreting, and regulating medical knowledge and practice is widely accepted and believed to promote medical innovation, industry-favouring biases may result in prioritizing corporate profit above public health. Using diabetes as our example, we review successive changes over forty years in screening, diagnosis, and treatment guidelines for type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, which have dramatically expanded the population prescribed diabetes drugs, generating a billion-dollar market. We argue that these guideline recommendations have emerged under pervasive industry (...) influence and persisted, despite weak evidence for their health benefits and indications of serious adverse effects associated with many of the drugs they recommend. We consider pharmaceutical industry conflicts of interest in some of the research and publications supporting these revisions, and in related standard-setting committees and oversight panels. We raise concern over the long-term impact of these multifaceted involvements. Rather than accept industry conflicts of interest as normal, needing only to be monitored and managed, we suggest challenging that normalcy, and ask: what are the real costs of tolerating such industry participation? We urge the development of a broader focus to fully understand and curtail the systemic nature of industry’s influence over medical knowledge and practice. (shrink)

Victorian physics meets industrial capitalism Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-6 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9554-0 Authors Bruce J. Hunt, History Department, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station B7000, Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Accounts of scientific explanation disagree about what’s required for a cause, law, or other fact to be a reason why an event occurs. In short, they disagree about the conditions for explanatory relevance. Nonetheless, most accounts presuppose that claims about explanatory relevance play a descriptive role in tracking reality. By rejecting the need for this descriptivist assumption, I develop an expressivist account of explanatory relevance and explanation: to judge that an answer is explanatory is to express an attitude of _being (...) for being satisfied by that answer_. I show how expressivism vindicates ordinary scientific discourse about explanation, including claims about the objectivity and mind-independence of explanations. By avoiding commitment to ontic relevance relations, I rehabilitate an irrealist conception of explanation. (shrink)

This study examines ethics-related learning outcomes that emerged from an experience-based project in a personal selling and sales management course. Using qualitative research methods, we classified students’ experiences according to domains of ethical issues associated with personal selling and according to conceptualizations of learning identified in the education literature. Patterns we observed in our data suggest that the experience-based project encouraged learners to employ higher-order thinking about business ethics. Higher order problem-solving about ethical issues helps ensure that lessons students learn (...) about ethical decision making carry forward to their professional careers. Based on our findings, we recommend ways instructors can formulate ethics-related learning objectives, develop learning assessments that measure ethics-related learning outcomes, and design teaching and learning activities that help ensure students learn ethical concepts in a way that will carry forward to their careers. (shrink)

Healthcare user fees present an important barrier for accessing services for the poorest (indigents) in Burkina Faso and selective removal of fees has been incorporated in national healthcare planning. However, establishing fair, effective and sustainable mechanisms for the removal of user fees presents important challenges. A participatory action-research project was conducted in Ouargaye, Burkina Faso, to test mechanisms for identifying those who are indigents, and funding and implementing user fee removal. In this paper, we explore stakeholder perceptions of ethical considerations (...) relating to participation and partnership arising in the action-research. (shrink)

In this article I attempt to transcend the mainstream conception of health care ethics, including nursing ethics, by bringing into the foreground a tension between a sense of life and an industrial-bureaucratic style of health care, with its emphasis on the systematic and procedural work culture necessary for mass production. I use the concept of ‘a sense of life’ to draw attention to the wisdom, sensitivity and responsibility that is necessary for the authentic care of others to be given a (...) chance in the development of modern health care. I emphasize the mindfulness that the professional requires for genuine care, and how the systematic organization of modern health care, on the whole, ignores, obstructs and even suppresses such mindfulness. (shrink)

HIV/AIDS has changed from a disease of white gay men in the United States to a pandemic that largely involves women and dependent children in developing countries. Many theologies of disease are necessary to cope with the variety of expressions of this pandemic. Christian theoethical reflection on HIV/AIDS has been largely focused on sexual ethics, with uneven and mainly unhelpful results. Among the ethical issues that shape future useful conversations are globalized economics and resource sharing, the morality and economics of (...) the pharmaceutical industry, and the need for sex education and access to reproductive choice. Considering such issues in international, interreligious, multiscientific contexts is a concrete next step for the religion‐and‐science dialogue. It will put the powerful tools of both fields to the service of the common good. (shrink)

China, India, Brazil and other major Third World nations have long refused to sign the Nuclear Non‐proliferation Treaty. This position might at first sight appear to be without any question morally unjustified and even irrational. Yet their claim that the treaty is ‘discriminatory’ merits the serious attention which it has not received. Only if certain aspects of this claim are accepted by the nuclear weapons signatories does a moral and rational onus to sign become unquestionable.

My thesis offers a philosophical and psychological examination of our ability to forgive strangers post-atrocity. Forgiveness is often considered impossible because atrocities involve unforgivable violations of moral values. Viewed through the lens of deconstruction, however, it is precisely where forgiveness seems impossible that it becomes possible, and more importantly, necessary in order to curb the desire for vengeance. Granting this radical understanding of the value of forgiveness---the ability to forgive the unforgivable---what hinders our ability to forgive? My work focuses on (...) public vindictiveness towards Karla Homolka, who was released in 2005, having served her 12-year sentence for her role in the rape and murder of 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy and 15-year-old Kristen French. My thesis aims to show how reflective engagement with forgiveness can tell us something about ourselves as ethical persons by demonstrating how and why our ongoing resentment towards others is often morally unjustified. (shrink)

Aristos Michelle Kamhi and Louis Torres are working hard to bring attention to Ayn Rand's much neglected theory of art and literature. This is their web site. It was dormant while they wer finishing their book, but now they are adding new material again.

You can view some of my published rantings by clicking below. All of which, except for the first one, were published in student newspapers here at UW. There was also an op-ed piece in the Wisconsin State Journal , but I don't seem to have an electronic copy of it. (Note: Some of these were published under different titles than those used here.).

The paper offers an account of luck, fate, and fortune. It begins by showing that extant accounts of luck are deficient because they do not identify the genus of which luck is a species. That genus of properties, the tychic, alert an agent to occasions on which the external world cooperates with or frustrates their goal-achievement. An agent’s sphere of competence is the set of goals that it is possible for them to reliably achieve. Luck concerns occasions on which there (...) is a mismatch between attempt and result; in bad luck the external world thwarts goal-achievement within the agent’s sphere of competence, in good luck the external world assists goal-achievement beyond the agent’s sphere of competence. Fateful events are those where, more passively, the agent finds the external world achieving or frustrating their goals. Fortune concerns the contraction and expansion of the agent’s sphere of competence. Eight reasons are given for accepting the account; its theoretical virtues and various things it explains. Lastly, three objections are answered; that the tychic properties relate to well-being rather than agency, that there are alternative theories of fortune available in the contemporary literature, that the account draws arbitrary distinctions between synonyms. (shrink)

Marx and Rawls seems to have a very different concept of justice. Marx argued that the concept of justice functions in the performance of the dominant ideological mode of production required for the conduct, as universally binding legal code. Rawls is argued that justice is the first virtue of social institutions, its law may be recognized by all such people: they are fair and reasonable to discuss the issue is how to equitably divide among themselves the burden of social cooperation (...) and interests. Although embodied in Marx and Rawls an important difference between the various positions still exist, but I believe that the concept of justice is obviously two different positions, is able to reconcile. Despite the different effects of Hegel and Kant, Marx and Rawls's view can still show the same place. In a clear political concept of justice, Rawls believes that acceptable principles of justice, must be in the social system can be implemented. This led to his "Kantian constructivism", close to Hegel's view, at this point, Marx laid him on the universal, social rejection of a priori principles of justice. I believe that both Marx and Rawls are asked, and what can be seen as a social system to achieve the principles of justice as fairness. However, during which there are two important differences. First, Marx's vision, seems to be a Hume and Rawls beyond the so-called "environmental justice" society, while Rawls , the social environment beyond the justice is utopian. Secondly, Marx believed that, as the social basis of market relations should be exceeded, because the relationship between these markets to include the producers of natural and social process of production of the products of labor and social alienation. Although environmental justice in the society beyond the market's demise may be, Rawls was declared to be a just solution in the competitive demands of any society, the demise of the market are not. I believe that, if Marx's rejection of the market, as a fundamental denial "commodity fetishism", then the position of Marx and Rawls will be able to reconcile. The author concludes that, in addition to Marx's concept of the future classless society with the ideal ingredients, capitalism and the market in the concept of justice, Marx and Rawls's position is very close. Man and Raids appear to have quite different views at justice. Marx claims that the concept of justice functions ideologically to represent conduct required by the prevailing mode of production as universally binding imperatives. Rawls claims that justice is the first virtue of society, whose principles may be agreed to by all persons who impartially and rationally deliberate on the issue of fairly dividing the burdens and benefits of social cooperation. I argue that these apparently different positions on justice can be reconciled, although important differences between the standpoints of Marx and Rawls remain. Despite the differing influences on them of Hegel and Kant, the views of Marx and Rawls can be shown to converge. In proposing an explicitly political conception of justice, Rawls argues that acceptable principles of justice must be realisable in social institutions. This brings his' Kantian constructivism 'closer to the Hegelian view, on which Marx bases his rejection of universal, socially transcendent principles of justice. I argue that both Marx and Rawls can be seen as asking what social institutions can realise principles of justice as fairness. Nevertheless, two important differences remain. Marx seems to envisage a society which transcends the 'circumstances of justice', as specified by Hume and Rawls, whereas Rawls a society beyond the circumstances of justice as utopian. Secondly, Marx claims that market relations should be transcended as the basis of society, since they inherently involve alienation of producers from the social process of production and from the product of their social labour. However, while elimination of markets might be possible in a society that transcends the circumstances of justice, Rawls claims that it is not possible in any society where a fair resolution of competing claims is necessary. I argue that the positions of Marx and Rawls can be reconciled if we take Marx's objection to markets as fundamentally an objection to the 'fetishism of commodities'. I conclude that, apart from the utopian element in Marx's conception of a future classless society, the positions of Marx and Rawls on the justice of capitalism and the market are quite close. (shrink)

The modern belief that mindless forces can be ultimate efficient causes of natural events is a conceptual impossibility. The logically ultimate cause of any change, the something that is ultimately making it occur in the present moment, is either a mind or not. More specifically, the cause either chooses to act or it does not. By choice here, I mean an act of free will in the libertarian sense. Where there is choosing in this sense there must be a mind. (...) And when we say that an agent acts thus freely, we mean that it acts without being causally determined to act by anything beyond itself. However, this is conceptually indistinguishable from the idea of an ultimate efficient cause. To say that an agent is the ultimate cause in a causal chain is, by definition, to say that it acts without being caused to act by anything beyond itself. It is the head of the causal chain. It is, therefore, a matter of conceptual necessity that ultimate causes be minds, a fact that we have been blind to since the Scientific Revolution on the bad analogy of machines. Thus, every force ultimately governing the universe must be a mind corresponding either to the polytheist’s or the monotheist’s generic definition of divinity, and monotheism’s eternal mind will always be the most complete and justifiable explanation for the existence of the universe as a whole, even for the existence of the gods themselves. (shrink)