Currently assessment and management of animal welfare are based on the supposition that welfare status is something experienced identically by each individual animal when exposed to the same conditions. However, many authors argue that individual welfare cannot be seen as an ‘objective’ state, but is based on the animal’s own self-perception; such perception might vary significantly between individuals which appear to be exposed to exactly the same challenges. We argue that this has two implications: (1) actual perceived welfare status of (...) individuals in a population may vary over a wide range even under identical environmental conditions; (2) animals that appear to an external observer to be in better or poorer welfare condition may all in fact perceive their own individual status as the same. This would imply that optimum welfare of a social group might be achieved in situations where individual group members differ markedly in apparent welfare status and perceive their own welfare as being optimal under differing circumstances. Welfare phenotypes may also vary along a continuum between self-regarding and other-regarding behaviour; a variety of situations exist where (social) individuals appear to invest in the welfare of other individuals instead of maximising their own welfare; in such a case it is necessary to re-evaluate individual welfare within the context of a social group and recognise that there may be consequences for the welfare of individuals, of decisions made at the group level or by other group members. (shrink)

In this paper I outline the main features of Karen Bennett’s (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 1–21, 2011) non-classical mereology, and identify its methodological costs. I argue that Bennett’s mereology cannot account for the composition of structural universals because it cannot explain the mereological difference between isomeric universals, such as being butane and being isobutane. I consider responses, which come at costs to the view.

Sonja Plischke’s Die Seleukiden und Iran is an attempt to study Seleucid empire building in Iran. In view of the fact that indigenous written sources from Iran are practically absent, Plischke decided to include Babylonia in this work, since the written cuneiform evidence from that region is fairly abundant. She detects some general tendencies—such as religious policy and the general wish to connect the different parts of the empire—supported by a personal conception of Seleucid kingship, beside more specific treatment of (...) different regions. In my view, the Seleucids probably did not pay sufficient attention to the East, so that their control weakened. I take the opportunity to discuss the Babylonian sources, correct errors in Plischke’s use of them, and adduce some new publications. (shrink)

In our pursuit of a good life (eubios), both individuals and societies, need to educate themselves on the pursuit of love of life in all domains, self-love, love of others, loving good and love of life. In this paper I reflect on my own journey through growing up in Christchurch, and experiences around the world, that are the basis for that conclusion. In our efforts to pursuit bioethics education we can enhance peaceful and harmonius coexistence in our world, through nurturing (...) good decisions that we should all make. (shrink)

The four short works in Untimely Meditations were published by Nietzsche between 1873 and 1876.They deal with such broad topics as the relationship between popular and genuine culture, strategies for cultural reform, the task of philosophy, the nature of education, and the relationship between art, science and life. They also include Nietzsche's earliest statement of his own understanding of human selfhood as a process of endlessly 'becoming who one is'. As Daniel Breazeale shows in his introduction to this new edition (...) of R. J. Hollingdale's translation of the essays, these four early texts are key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought and clearly anticipate many of the themes of his later writings. Nietzsche himself always cherished his Untimely Meditations and believed that they provide valuable evidence of his 'becoming and self-overcoming' and constitute a 'public pledge' concerning his own distinctive task as a philosopher. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that God’s causation of human free choices is best understood in light of Aquinas’s teaching on creation. Such a position is attractive because it provides a way of avoiding the compatibilism of classical interpretations of Aquinas. However, this position may be subject to other flaws. In fact, Francisco Suárez explicitly rejects the view that God’s creative causality can be understood either as the divine essence or as a predicamental relation of the created effect to God. (...) The purpose of this essay is to investigate, first, whether Suárez’s view of efficient causality rules out conceptualizing God’s motion of the will in terms of creation, and second, whether it provides a more plausible alternative. I argue on both points that it does not, and that an error common to both Suárez and his sixteenth-century opponents is one reason to conceptualize divine motion as a kind of creation. (shrink)

For various domains in proportional reasoning cognitive development is characterized as a progression through a series of increasingly complex rules. A multiplicative relationship between two task features, such as weight and distance information of blocks placed at both sides of the fulcrum of a balance scale, appears difficult to discover. During development, children change their beliefs about the balance scale several times: from a focus on the weight dimension (Rule I) to occasionally considering the distance dimension (Rule II), guessing (Rule (...) III), and applying multiplication (Rule IV; Siegler, 1981). Because of the detailed empirical findings the balance scale task has become a benchmark task for computational models of proportional reasoning. In this article, we present a large empirical study (N = 420) of which the findings provide a challenge for computational models. The effect of feedback and the effect of individually adapted training items on rule transition were tested for children using Rule I or Rule II. Presenting adapted training items initiates belief revision for Rule I but not for Rule II. The experience of making mistakes (by providing feedback) induces a change for both Rule I and Rule II. However, a delayed posttest shows that these changes are preserved after 2 weeks only for children using Rule I. We conclude that the transition from Rule I to Rule II differs from the transition from Rule II to a more complex rule. Concerning these empirical findings, we will review performance of computational models and the implications for a future belief revision model. It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to put him in possession of Truth. John Locke. (shrink)

Please note that this article belongs to the Special Issue on the Legacy of David Lewis but was included in issue 195:5 by mistake. It should be regarded as part of this selection of articles.

There is a long tradition of characterizing man as the talking animal. However, the remarkable ability of using pictures also belongs to human beings, after all we know empirically so far. Are there conceptual reasons for that coincidence? Such a question belongs to the general science of language (linguistics) and philosophy of language just as well as to general visualistics (image science) - a discipline just emancipating itself from art history. We here take the visualistics point of view. A first (...) recapitulation of the two abilities to use words or pictures lists several similarities and distinctions. A well-known disparity between pictures and words in the relation to perception can be determined by differences in the modes of usage during the corresponding sign acts. Furthermore, there are distinct ways for splitting up the pictorial or verbal sign acts into figure and ground. Such a structural comparison can only clarify conceptual relations; it cannot explain that the conceptual structure ought to be like that, in contrast to concept-genetic considerations. Correspondingly the discussion is extended to a concept-genetic sketch of the abilities to use language or pictures. This shifts the focus of attention to the concept of sortal objects and the concept of contexts of behavior. They allow us to analyze more precisely the relation between the two abilities in question, in particular as something depending on the function of context building, which enables human beings to communicatively access contexts apart from the actual situation of behavior. We finally gain arguments that characterize that relation as one of mutual dependency, and even lead to an understanding of the concept of inner images - or rather: a concept of imagination. (shrink)

In Responding to Global Poverty, Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland argue that, while exploitation is morally problematic, responsibilities not to exploit are characteristically less stringent than responsibilities not to harm. They even suggest that exploiters’ responsibilities to assist the exploited may be weaker than the responsibilities of culpable bystanders who are able to help the poor but fail to do so We think Barry and Øverland underestimate the prospects of the exploitation argument. In our paper, we suggest that exploitation can (...) plausibly be understood as a kind of harm. If exploitation harms, then it requires special justification and can generate stringent responsibilities not to exploit that have a different ground than those generated by morally culpable failures to assist. This suggests an important way to rehabilitate arguments for poverty relief on the basis of a duty not to harm, and that there is more interesting territory to explore than Barry and Øverland’s arguments suggest. (shrink)

FAO has a unique and essential rolein addressing the ethical problems facinghumanity and in making these problems intoopportunities for practical resolution. A broadrange of ethical issues in agriculture,fisheries, and forestry were identified byanalysis of the literature and by interviewswith FAO staff. Issues include sharing accessto and preserving natural resources,introduction of new technology, conservatismover the use of genetic engineering, ethics inanimal agriculture, access to information, foodsecurity, sustainable rural development,ensuring participation of all people indecision making and in receiving benefits ofagriculture, reducing corruption, (...) andinvolvement of private and public sectors indecision making. Rather than viewing theseissues as problems, they should be viewed asopportunities for debate, learning aboutothers' views, and resolution. The UnitedNations has an important role to play in howdecisions are made in the global ethical debatein food and agriculture. The ethical role ofFAO is to promote global food security,balanced conservation, management andutilization of natural resources, andsustainable rural development. FAO should fullyand publicly assume its ethicalresponsibilities, gathering and sharinginformation on ethics in its areas of mandate,acting as an interactive forum, and providingexpert guidance on policy options and choicesbased on practical ethical analysis. (shrink)

The essays in this volume are based on addresses given during a colloquium on free logic, modal logic, and related areas held at the University of California in 1968. The majority of the contributors are well known for their writings in these fields and their papers are as illuminating as they are technical. In the first paper, Lambert and Bas C. Van Fraassen apply free logic to several controversies in quantified modal logic. One of these is Putman's argument that (...) 'Nothing is both red and green all over' can be had as a theorem of modal logic. Lambert and Van Fraassen provide a counter example to this claim and then show that the argument only holds in systems allowing possible individuals. Jaako Hintikka's essay also deals with 'free' modal logics in much the same way as Hintikka's other papers and discusses some of the criticisms of Quine of the entire enterprise of quantified modal logic. In another paper, H. Leblanc and R. K. Meyer provide truth-value semantics for the theory of types and hence an alternative semantic structure for functional calculi of any order. In addition to these essays, there are papers by R. Thomason and Dana Scott on modal logic, J. Vickers on probability logic, and Peter Woodruff on truth value gaps. To anyone interested in these various areas this collection is sure to be welcome.--R. P. M. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

We provide a justification for political liberalism’s Reciprocity Principle, which states that political decisions must be justified exclusively on the basis of considerations that all reasonable citizens can reasonably be expected to accept. The standard argument for the Reciprocity Principle grounds it in a requirement of respect for persons. We argue for a different, but compatible, justification: the Reciprocity Principle is justified because it makes possible a desirable kind of political community. The general endorsement of the Reciprocity Principle, we will (...) argue, helps realize joint political rule and relationships of civic friendship. The main obstacle to the realization of these values is the presence of reasonable disagreement about religious, moral, and philosophical issues characteristic of liberal societies. We show the Reciprocity Principle helps to overcome this obstacle. (shrink)

Voltaire's Pangloss, the man who held among other things that noses were clearly created in order to support spectacles, is the very archetype of the lunatic teleologist; a caricature of sublimely confident faith in the general and undeniable goodness of the world's arrangement, a faith that managed astoundingly to survive the Lisbon earthquake and his own subsequent auto dafé. Voltaire, of course, is poking fun at such conceptions; and, no doubt, in their extreme sanguinity as well as in their apparent (...) imperviousness to devastating empirical counter-evidence, they do seem to be eminently risible notions. In the face of them we might be tempted to abandon ‘métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie’, and to agree with Candide that ‘Cela est bien dit, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin’. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 1, Page 72-103, Winter 2019.

It is shown how to define forcing semantics within metatheories not containing the power-set construction, in particular, how to construct exponents assuming only (a slightly strengthened form of) exponents in the metatheory. Some straightforward applications (consistency and independence results, and derived rules) are obtained for such systems.

‘Damn your principles, stick to your party!’ Benjamin Disraeli supposedly commanded. As Garnett’s short, lively history of the interplay of conservative thought and the ideology of the British Cons...