In our lives, we aim to achieve welfare for ourselves, that is, to live good lives. But we also have another, more impartial perspective, where we aim to balance our concern for our own welfare against a concern for the welfare of others. This is a perspective of justice. Nils Holtug examines these two perspectives and the relations between them.

The contributors to the volume are: Richard Arneson, Linda Barclay, Thomas Christiano, Nils Holtug, Susan Hurley, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Dennis McKerlie, ...

Dahlbäck, Forsblad and Hydén argue that conversational remembering in the real‐world must be acknowledged as an interactional practice grounded in and bound to the communicative actions produced by the interlocutors. They illustrate the complexity of those processes by referring to their own fieldwork examining older adults’ prospective memory within their homes (Dahlbäck, Kristiansson, & Stjernberg, 2013) and propose alternative methodologies (e.g., scenarios design) to increase collaborations between ethnographic and experimental memory researchers.

F. P. Ramsey was a remarkably creative and subtle philosopher who in the briefest of academic careers made significant contributions to logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language and decision theory. His few published papers reveal him to be a figure or comparable importance to Russell, Carnap and Wittgenstein in the history of analytical philosophy. This book was the first critical study of Ramsey's work, offering a thorough exposition and interpretation of his ideas, setting the ideas in their historical context, (...) and assessing their significance for contemporary research. The study is intended to complement the reissue of Ramsey's papers edited by Professor Hugh Mellor. (shrink)

According to the Harm Principle, roughly, the state may coerce a person only if it can thereby prevent harm to others. Clearly, this principle depends crucially on what we understand by harm. Thus, if any sort of negative effect on a person may count as a harm, the Harm Principle will fail to sufficiently protect individual liberty. Therefore, a more subtle concept of harm is needed. I consider various possible conceptions and argue that none gives rise to a plausible version (...) of the Harm Principle. Whether we focus on welfare, quantities of welfare or qualities of welfare, we do not arrive at a plausible version of this principle. Instead, the concept of harm may be moralized. I consider various ways this may be done as well as possible rationales for the resulting versions of the Harm Principle. Again, no plausible version of the principle turns up. I also consider the prospect of including the Harm Principle in a decision-procedure rather than in a criterion of rightness. Finally, in light of my negative appraisal, I briefly discuss why this principle has seemed so appealing to liberals. (shrink)

In order to explain several discrepancies between the gene-recombination phenomena in phages and in higher organisms, we assume that theT 2 phage, after entering the bacterium, divides in three parts corresponding to the three “chromosomes' whichHershey andRotman have traced in this phage. The three parts are supposed to be able to divide further by rupture or by the action of other “chromosome fragments”. Each fragment is supposed able to reproduce inside the bacterium as a more or less independent unit and (...) before lysis of the bacterium the various parts are assumed to reunite in complete sets of genes each forming a new phage.After discussing the experimental facts supporting these assumptions, we show that the assumptions are in perfect agreement with the theory of the symbiosis of genes, a theory which seems necessary in order to explain the ability of the “chromosome-fragments” to reunite into complete phages.Also the problems arising with respect to the sexual reproduction in bacteria is discussed under the point of view of the symbiosis theory. The assumption is made that the hereditary material is transduced from bacterium to bacterium by ultramicroscopic virus-like particles “genophores”. In several lysogenic bacteria the genophores are supposed still able to act as parasites instead of symbiontes towards some other sensitive bacteria. The experimental facts supporting this assumption are analyzed, and new experimental tests suggested. (shrink)

This is a comprehensive introduction to the history of Western Philosophy from the Pre-Socratics to Twentieth Century thought. In addition to all the key figures, the book covers figures whose contributions have so far been overlooked, such as Vico, Montesquieu, Durkheim and Weber. Along with in-depth discussion of the philosophical movements, Skirbekk and Gilje also discuss the natural sciences, the establishment of the Humanities, Socialism and Fascism, Psychoanalysis, and the rise of the social sciences. _History of Western Thought_ is an (...) ideal introduction to philosophy and the sociological and scientific structures that have shaped modern day philosophy. (shrink)

The strength of a slippery slope argument is a matter of some dispute. Some see it as a reasonable argument pointing out what probably or inevitably follows from adopting some practice, others see it as essentially a fallacious argument. However, there seems to be a tendency emerging to say that in many cases, the argument is not actually fallacious, although it may be unsubstantiated. I shall not try to settle this general discussion, but merely seek to assess the strength of (...) the slippery slope argument applied to human gene therapy. The structure of my argument will be the following. First, I shall distinguish between three different versions of the slippery slope argument; two logical versions and an empirical one. Next, I will address human gene therapy in terms of each of the three versions, partly relying on slippery slope arguments against this practice that have already surfaced in the literature. I shall argue that neither version pulls through. The logical versions fail primarily because relevant distinctions can be made between different uses of gene therapy, contrary to what the proponents of the arguments claim. The empirical version fails because there seems to be no evidence supporting the claim that we shall in fact slide down the slope if we engage in gene therapy, and because if we accepted the conclusion that we should not allow gene therapy on the basis of the empirical argument, we should have to make very far-reaching and undesirable modifications in health care in general, in order to be consistent. Or at least so I shall argue. (shrink)

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, EarlyView.

For Hannah Arendt, the public is the realm where individuals show themselves to their fellow human beings. They do this by relating to each other through speaking and acting together. Both speaking and acting are only possible if men acknowledge each other as independent, autonomous individuals but at the same time keep a common interest, a reference point for their speaking and acting together. In or- der to recognize each other as equal yet unique, individuals must gain distance – to (...) themselves, to others and to the objects they speak of. They are only able to do this in public. Helmuth Plessner has developed a concept of publicity which ensures the individual’s »right to distance«. This »right to distance« can contribute to a better understanding of Hannah Arendt’s often misinterpreted separation of the private from the public realm and furthermore allows a better understanding of how Arendt envisioned a culture within which the political can be established. (shrink)

Normative ethics usually presupposes background accounts of human agency, and although different ethical theorists might have different pictures of human agency in mind, there is still something like a standard account that most of mainstream normative ethics can be understood to rest on. Ethical theorists tend to have Rational Man, or at least some close relative to him, in mind when constructing normative theories. It will be argued here that empirical findings raise doubts about the accuracy of this kind of (...) account; human beings fall too far short of ideals of rationality for it to be meaningful to devise normative ideals within such a framework. Instead, it is suggested, normative ethics could be conducted more profitably if the idea of unifying all ethical concerns into one theoretical account is abandoned. This disunity of ethical theorizing would then match the disunited and heuristic-oriented nature of our agency. (shrink)

In bilateral logic formulas are signed by + and –, indicating the speech acts assertion and denial. I argue that making an assumption is also speech act. Speech acts cannot be embedded within other speech acts. Hence we cannot make sense of the notion of making an assumption in bilateral logic. Attempts to solve this problem are considered and rejected.

Emergence is a universal phenomenon that can be defined mathematically in a very general way. This is useful for the study of scientifically legitimate explanations of complex systems, here defined as hyperstructures. A requirement is that the observation mechanisms are considered within the general framework. Two notions of emergence are defined, and specific examples of these are discussed.

This paper discusses proof-theoretic semantics, the project of specifying the meanings of the logical constants in terms of rules of inference governing them. I concentrate on Michael Dummett’s and Dag Prawitz’ philosophical motivations and give precise characterisations of the crucial notions of harmony and stability, placed in the context of proving normalisation results in systems of natural deduction. I point out a problem for defining the meaning of negation in this framework and prospects for an account of the meanings of (...) modal operators in terms of rules of inference. (shrink)

This chapter examines autonomism. Autonomism is roughly the view that an artwork’s ethical properties do not bear on its aesthetic or artistic value. The author sketches some of the view’s history before describing various versions of it defended over the last quarter-century. These are divided into ‘radical’, ‘robust’, and ‘moderate’ forms of autonomism. The author considers the strengths and weaknesses of each. The author also devotes some space to the ‘interactionist’ views against which contemporary autonomism is typically opposed. In doing (...) so, he considers the so-called ‘qua problem’ at some length, as well its bearing on these various autonomist positions. (shrink)

Ian Rumfitt has proposed systems of bilateral logic for primitive speech acts of assertion and denial, with the purpose of ‘exploring the possibility of specifying the classically intended senses for the connectives in terms of their deductive use’ : 810f). Rumfitt formalises two systems of bilateral logic and gives two arguments for their classical nature. I assess both arguments and conclude that only one system satisfies the meaning-theoretical requirements Rumfitt imposes in his arguments. I then formalise an intuitionist system of (...) bilateral logic which also meets those requirements. Thus Rumfitt cannot claim that only classical bilateral rules of inference succeed in imparting a coherent sense onto the connectives. My system can be extended to classical logic by adding the intuitionistically unacceptable half of a structural rule Rumfitt uses to codify the relation between assertion and denial. Thus there is a clear sense in which, in the bilateral framework, the difference between classicism and intuitionism is not one of the rules of inference governing negation, but rather one of the relation between assertion and denial. (shrink)

This is only a very short essay on negation and harmony in philosophical logic. If you buy it anyway, you'll help me pay the bills and I'll be able to write longer things.

This article discusses why it is the case that we refuse to accept strange evaluative claims as being true in fictions, even though we are happy to go along with other types of absurdities in such contexts. For instance, we would refuse to accept the following statement as true, even in the con-text of a fiction: -/- (i) In killing her baby, Giselda did the right thing; after all, it was a girl. -/- This article offers a sensibilist diagnosis of (...) this puzzle, inspired by an observation first made by David Hume. According to sensibilism, the way we feel about things settles their evaluative properties. Thus, when confronted with a fictional scenario where the configuration of non-evaluative facts and properties is relevantly similar to the actual world, we refuse to go along with evaluative properties being instantiated ac-cording to a different pattern. It is the attitudes we hold in the actual world that fix the extension of evaluative properties, even in non-actual worlds. When engaging with a fiction, we (to some extent) leave our be-liefs about what the world is like behind, while taking our emotional atti-tudes with us into the fiction. To substantiate this diagnosis, this paper outlines a sensibilist semantics for evaluative terms, based on recent discussion regarding predicates of personal taste, and explains how, together with standard assumptions about the nature of fictional discourse, it makes the relevant predictions with respect to engagement with fictions. (shrink)

We all know that Ramsey argued that the best way to understand how the theoretical entities of a theory function is to picture them as existentially bound variables. If the entities of our theory are a, ß, and y, the best way to write our theory, he tells us, is: 3 a,ß,γ. The theory’s ‘Ramsey sentence’, the existentially bound variables are the carriers of ontological commitment. If the Ramsey sentence is true, they tell us what there is.

According to what I call the Merit Principle, roughly, works of art that attempt to elicit unmerited responses fail on their own terms and are thereby aesthetically flawed. A horror film, for instance, that attempts to elicit fear towards something that is not scary is to that extent aesthetically flawed. The Merit Principle is not only intuitive, it is also endorsed in some form by Aristotle, David Hume, and numerous contemporary figures. In this paper, I show how the principle leads (...) to a novel paradox when applied to an undertheorized class of artworks I call ‘seductive works’. These artworks necessarily invite an unmerited response in order to invite a (merited) repudiation of that response. Thus, according to the Merit Principle, they are necessarily aesthetically flawed, which is counter-intuitive. I consider a number of unsuccessful solutions to the paradox that aim to preserve the Merit Principle, before rejecting that principle as it stands. I discuss what is challenging about seductive artworks, before briefly defending a new principle that appeals to a general way that a work’s aesthetic value is conditioned by the constraints under which it operates. This principle not only resolves the paradox, but explains the competing intuitions that give rise to it. (shrink)

Roughly, according to conditional egalitarianism, equality is non-instrumentally valuable, but only if it benefits at least one individual. Some political theorists have argued that conditional egalitarianism has the important virtue that it allows egalitarians to avoid the so-called objection. However, in the present article I argue that conditional egalitarianism does not offer the egalitarian a plausible escape route from this objection. First, I explain the levelling down objection and suggest some particular concerns from which it derives its force. Then I (...) provide a more precise definition of conditional egalitarianism. Finally, I give two arguments against this principle. According to the first, it violates the transitivity of the betterness relation (or more specifically, ). According to the second, there is no plausible explanation of why equality must benefit at least one individual in order to be non-instrumentally valuable. (shrink)

Mobile health devices pose novel questions at the intersection of philosophy and technology. Many such applications not only collect sensitive data, but also aim at persuading users to change their lifestyle for the better. A major concern is that persuasion is paternalistic as it intentionally aims at changing the agent’s actions, chipping away at their autonomy. This worry roots in the philosophical conviction that perhaps the most salient feature of living autonomous lives is displayed via agency as opposed to patiency—our (...) lives go well in virtue of what we do, rather than what happens to us. Being persuaded by a device telling us how to conduct our lives seemingly renders the agent passive, an inert recipient of technological commands. This agential bias, however, has led to a marginalization of patiential characteristics that are just as much part of our lives as are agential characteristics. To appreciate the inherent interlocking of acting and being acted upon, it is vital to acknowledge that agency and patiency are correlates, not mutually exclusive opposites. Furthermore, it is unclear whether an action can only count as agential so long as its causes are internal. Drawing on the extended mind and extended will framework, I argue that mHealth applications merely serve as volitional aids to the agent’s internal cognition. Autonomously set goals can be achieved more effectively via technology. To be persuaded by an mHealth device does not mainly—let alone exclusively—emphasize patiency; on the contrary, it can be an effective tool for technologically enhancing agency. (shrink)

This paper studies a formalisation of intuitionistic logic by Negri and von Plato which has general introduction and elimination rules. The philosophical importance of the system is expounded. Definitions of ‘maximal formula’, ‘segment’ and ‘maximal segment’ suitable to the system are formulated and corresponding reduction procedures for maximal formulas and permutative reduction procedures for maximal segments given. Alternatives to the main method used are also considered. It is shown that deductions in the system convert into normal form and that deductions (...) in normal form have the subformula property. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that coming into existence can benefit (or harm) aperson. My argument incorporates the comparative claim that existence canbe better (or worse) for a person than never existing. Since these claimsare highly controversial, I consider and reject a number of objectionswhich threaten them. These objections raise various semantic, logical,metaphysical and value-theoretical issues. I then suggest that there is animportant sense in which it can harm (or benefit) a person not to comeinto existence. Again, I consider and (...) reject some objections. Finally, Ibriefly consider what the conclusions reached in this paper imply for ourmoral obligations to possible future people. (shrink)