온건한 공평주의에 따르면 도덕은 기본적으로 공평성을 지니지만 그것은 편향성의 이유와도 양립 가능하다. 이러한 입장을 옹호하기 위해서는 편향성의 이유들을 적극적으로 논구할 필요가 있는데, 이러한 이유들을 이해하는 입장에는 크게 두 가지가 있다. 한편으로 환원주의에 따르면 편향성의 이유들은 근본적으로 도덕의 이유들에 의해 정당화되며, 다른 한편으로 비환원주의에 따르면 그 이유들은 주어진 편향성을 지지하는 구체적 가치들의 고유한 구조와 내용에 의해 담보되며 도덕의 이유들로 환원되지는 않는다. 비환원주의적 입장은 도덕의 이유들로 환원되지 않는 편향성의 이유들의 독립적 성격을 인정할 수 있다는 점에서 많은 지지를 받고 있다. 그리고 온건한 공평주의를 (...) 주장하는 철학자들도 대체로 비환원주의적 입장에 호의적이다. 하지만 필자는 이러한 비환원주의적 온건한 공평주의는 그렇게 매력적인 입장이 될 수 없음을 보인다. 이를 위해 우선 비환원주의의 독특한 특징, 즉 도덕의 이유들 및 도덕에 환원되지 않는 독립적인 편향성의 이유들을 동시에 인정하는 입장에 문제가 있음을 드러낸다. 비환원주의자들이 도덕의 이유들까지 인정한다면 그들은 필자가 제안하는 도덕적 평등의 원칙을 수용하는 셈이다. 도덕적 평등의 원칙은 동등한 존중과 동등한 대우를 구분하기 때문에 모든 사람을 항상 동등하게 대우해야 한다는 주장을 함축하지 않으며, 바로 이로 인해 이 원칙을 기반으로 하는 공평주의는 온건한 공평주의가 된다. 그런데 이러한 온건한 공평주의가 비환원주의와 결합될 때에는 여러 가지 문제점이 나타나게 된다. 특히 이러한 형태의 공평주의는 편향성의 이유들이 도덕의 이유들보다 더 강력한 규범성을 가지고 행위자에게 나타나는 경우들을 원칙 있게 설명하지 못한다. 결론적으로 필자는 최근 주목을 받고 있는 비환원주의적 온건한 공평주의를 비판적인 시각에서 바라볼 필요가 있다고 주장한다. (shrink)

RésuméOn examine ?on;abord les termes explicites et implicites du contrat de justice selon Rawls. Ensuite on rappelle ľinterprétation ‘procédurale’ que ce dernier donne de ľautonomie kantienne et ľon montre ľinanité de cette interprétation. Cependant la doctrine de Rawls exprime avec bon‐heur une conception sceptique de la justice.SummaryAfter a short examination of the explicit and implicit contract of justice according to Rawls, the reasons afforded by him to give a Kantian foundation to the contract are recalled and rebutted. However Rawls's (...) doctrine remarkably expresses the main argument of a sceptical conception of justice.ZusammenfassungNach einer kurzen Untersuchung des expliziten und impliziten Begriffs des Gesellschaftsver‐trages, wie Rawls ihn versteht, wird die besondere Interpretation erOrtert, die er vom Kantschen Autonomiebegriff gibt. Es wird gezeigt, dass diese unzutreffend ist und dass Rawls Lehre eher auf eine skeptische Auffassung der Gerechtigkeit zutrifft. (shrink)

Although the notion of natural behavior occurs in many policy-making and legal documents on animal welfare, no consensus has been reached concerning its definition. This paper argues that one reason why the notion resists unanimously accepted definition is that natural behavior is not properly a biological concept, although it aspires to be one, but rather a philosophical tendency to perceive animal behavior in accordance with certain dichotomies between nature and culture, animal and human, original orders and invented artifacts. The paper (...) scrutinizes the philosophy of natural behavior as it developed in the organic movement in response to a perceived contrast between industrialized and traditional agriculture. There are two reasons for focusing on the organic movement: (i) the emphasis on “the natural” is most accentuated there and has a long history, (ii) everyday life on organic farms presupposes human/animal interplay, which conflicts with the philosophical tendency to separate nature from culture. This mismatch between theory and practice helps us see why, and how, the philosophy of natural behavior needs to be reconsidered. The paper proposes that we understand farms as local human/animal cultures, and asks what we can mean my natural behavior in such contexts. Since domestic animals adapt to agricultural environments via interaction with caretakers, such interplay is analyzed as “hub” in these animals’ natural behavior. (shrink)

According to a widely held physicalist view, consciousness is identical with some physical or functional phenomenon just as liquidity is identical with loose molecular connection. To many of us, this claim about consciousness seems more problematic than the claim about liquidity. To many—including many physicalists—the identification of consciousness with some physical phenomenon even seems “absurd” or “crazy”. A full defence of physicalism should explain why the allegedly correct hypothesis comes across this way. If physicalism is true and we have reason (...) to accept it, why does it seem “absurd”? One possibility is that this is fully explained by the fact that we have an erroneous understanding of consciousness or its physical basis. This explanation is embraced by few if any physicalists. It is rejected by many, including proponents of the “phenomenal concept strategy”, which lately has become the dominant strategy for defending physicalism. But the “error explanation” is clearly the most plausible explanation that is available to physicalists. So this paper argues. (shrink)

Colours and consciousness both present us with metaphysical problems. But what exactly are the problems? According to standard accounts, they are roughly the following. On the one hand, we have reason to believe, about both colour and consciousness, that they are identical with some familiar natural phenomena. But on the other hand, it is hard to see how these identities could obtain. I argue that this is an adequate characterisation of our metaphysical problem of colour, but a mischaracterisation of the (...) problem of consciousness. It mischaracterises the problem by presenting consciousness as more 'colour-like' than we have reason to take it to be. The real problem of consciousness is, I suggest, that almost nothing theoretically useful is known about this phenomenon at present. I also explore some implications of this perspective on the problem of consciousness. Given the shape of the problem, I argue that we can't rule out all forms of eliminativism about consciousness. Nor can we rule out that future research will close the ' explanatory gap' that consciousness gives rise to. (shrink)

RésuméAu cours de son développement historique, le bouddhisme a montré une capacité remarquable à s'insérer dans les contextes sociaux les plus variés. Les cas de l'Inde et de Ceylan sont examinés, l'un longuement, l'autre brièvement. L'auteur cherche àétablir quelques‐unes des raisons pour lesquelles, à partir d'un donné social analogue, le bouddhisme a disparu de l'Inde, mais s'est maintenu à Ceylan.SummaryIn the course of its historical development Buddhism has shown a remarkable ability to find its way into the most diverse social (...) contexts. The cases of India and Ceylon are studied, the former at length, the latter briefly. The author seeks to establish some of the reasons why, though the social context is similar in both countries, Buddhism has disappeared in India but has survived in Ceylon.ZusammenfassungDer Buddhismus konnte sich im Laufe der Geschichte erstaunlich gut an die unter‐schiedlichsten gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse anpassen. Der Verfasser geht gründlich auf den Fall Indiens und kurz auf denjenigen Ceylons ein und sucht nach Ursachen, weshalb der Buddhismus in Indien verschwunden ist, sich hingegen in Ceylon zu halten vermochte, obwohl sich die beiden Länder gesellschaftlich durchaus vergleichen lassen. (shrink)

One much discussed issue in contemporary philosophy is the relation between consciousness and intentionality. Philosophers debate whether consciousness and intentionality are somehow ‘connected’; whether we have reason to be more optimistic about an ‘objective,’ ‘scientific’ or ‘third person’ ‘account’ of intentionality than about an analogous account of consciousness. This paper is intended as a limited contribution to that debate. I shall be concerned only with the intentionality of action. Not everything which is true of intentionality of action is true of (...) intentionality of other phenomena, such as beliefs. I shall discuss the question, ‘What is the intentionality of action?’ More specifically, I shall discuss one partial answer to this question: that a necessary condition of an agent performing a certain intentional action is that the agent is conscious of performing that action. This answer is fairly unpopular in contemporary philosophy. In this paper, I shall try to say something about the ground for the rather wide-spread philosophical resistance to the answer, and I shall also outline the kind of considerations that I think are required to judge whether a wedge can or cannot be driven between consciousness and intentionality of action. (shrink)

Investigators often have multiple suspects to interview in order to determine whether they are guilty or innocent of a crime. Nevertheless, co-offending has been significantly neglected within the deception detection literature. The current review is the first of its kind to discuss co-offending and the importance of examining the detection of deception within groups. Groups of suspects can be interviewed separately (individual interviewing) or simultaneously (collective interviewing) and these differing interviewing styles are assessed throughout the review. The review emphasizes the (...) differences between lone individuals and groups. It focuses on the theoretical implications of group deceit and the reasons why groups need to be understood in terms of investigative interviewing and deception detection if all types of crime-related incidents are to be recognized and dealt with appropriately. Group strategies, consistency within- and between-statements, joint memory, and group dynamics are referred to throughout the review and the importance of developing interview protocols specifically for groups is discussed. The review concludes by identifying the gaps in the literature and suggesting ideas for future research, highlighting that more research is required if we are to obtain a true understanding of the deception occurring within groups and how best to detect it. (shrink)

“Reasonable hostility” is a norm of communicative conduct initially developed by studying public exchanges in education governance meetings in local U.S. communities. In this paper I consider the norm’s usefulness for and applicability to a U.S. state-level public hearing about a bill to legalize civil unions. Following an explication of reasonable hostility and grounded practical theory, the approach to inquiry that guides my work, I de-scribe Hawaii’s 2009, 18-hour pub-lic hearing and analyze selected segments of it. I show that this (...) par-ticular public hearing raised de-mands for testifiers on the anti-civil union side of the argument that rea-sonable hostility does not do a good job of addressing. Development of a norm of communication conduct for this practice, as well as others, must engage with the culture and time-specific beliefs that a society holds, beliefs that will shape not only how to argue but what may be argued and what must be assumed about particular categories of persons. (shrink)

This entry explains what the issue of weighing reasons is about and then discusses a number of theories concerning weighing reasons. The general issue concerns how reasons (or considerations or pros and cons) systematically interact to determine the normative status of some action, belief, or attitude. For example, it concerns how reasons determine whether an action is permissible, required, or what ought to be done. The general issue also concerns how reasons aggregate or themselves result (...) from systematic interactions with the broader context. Along the way, the entry considers whether reasons can be incommensurable (e.g., be on a par); whether reasons have more than one weight value (e.g., justifying, requiring, and commending); the relation between reasons for and reasons against; conditions (enablers, disablers); modifiers (amplifiers, attenuators); exclusionary reasons; higher order evidence; what happens when, say, morality and epistemic rationality conflict; and so on. (shrink)

In healthcare priority settings, early access to treatment before reimbursement decisions gives rise to problems of whether negative decisions for cost‐effectiveness reasons should result in withdrawing treatment, already accessed by patients. Among professionals there seems to be a strong attitude to distinguish between withdrawing and withholding treatment, viewing the former as ethically worse. In this article the distinction between withdrawing and withholding treatment for reasons of cost effectiveness is explored by analysing the doing/allowing distinction, different theories of justice, (...) consequentialist and virtue perspectives. The authors do not find any strong reasons for an intrinsic difference, but do find some reasons for a consequentialist difference, given present attitudes. However, overall, such a difference does not, all things considered, provide a convincing reason against withdrawal, given the greater consequentialist gain of using cost‐effective treatment. As a result, patients should be properly informed when given early access to treatment, that such treatment can be later withdrawn following a negative reimbursement decision. (shrink)

David Kelley discusses the relationship between philosophy and sense of life and explains why he and William Thomas do not consider sense of life essential to the explanation of why art is a major human value, though it is essential to explaining how people create and experience art. Kelley also challenges the claim by Kamhi and Torres (in their article, "Critical Neglect of Ayn Rand's Theory of Art? Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Fall 2000) that aesthetics, as a branch of (...) philosophy, is logically prior to ethics and on a par with epistemology in fundamentality. (shrink)

Katherine Morrison charges that in my book, Back to Reality, I failed to make my case for the adoption of a modest realism in postmodern (narrative) therapy, because I failed to establish the motive behind that movement’s adoption of antirealism. In fact, in Back to Reality, I put forth several reasons for therapists of all stripes to favor a modest realism over antirealism, reasons which do not depend upon the motives of narrative therapists, whatever they may be.Katherine Morrison (...) prétend que dans mon livre Back to Reality, je ne parviens pas à établir le bien-fonde d’une position qui adopte un réalisme modeste en thérapie (narrative) postmoderne, parce que je n’etablis pas les motifs qui se cachent derrière l’adoption de l’antiréalisme par ce mouvement. En fait, dans Back to Reality, j’énonce plusieurs raisons pour lesquelles les thérapeutes de toutes écolesdevraient préférer un réalisme modeste à I'antiréalisme. Ces raisons ne dépendent pas des motifs des thérapeutes narratifs, quels qu’ils soient. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In written work and a lecture at the 2008 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences that was co-sponsored by the Canadian Philosophical Association, Margaret Somerville has claimed that allowing same-sex marriage is unethical because doing so violates the inherently procreative function of marriage and thereby undermines the rights and duties that exist between children and their biological parents. In my paper, I offer five reasons for thinking that Somerville’s argument for this conclusion is unpersuasive. In each case (...) her argument either begs important questions about same-sex marriage or else relies on insufficient evidence to justify excluding a vulnerable minority group from participating in a state-sponsored social institution. RÉSUMÉ: Dans ses écrits ainsi que dans une conférence prononcée en 2008 au Congrès de la Fédération canadienne des sciences humaines, coparainnée par l’Association Canadienne de Philosophie, Margaret Somerville a prétendu que les mariages entre personnes de même sexe sont éthiquement inacceptables parce qu’ils violent la fonction primordiale du mariage, à savoir la procréation, et qu’ainsi ils portent atteinte aux droits et responsabilités qui lient les enfants et leurs parents biologiques. La présente communication se propose d’offrir cinq raisons pour lesquelles le point de vue de Margaret Somerville ne saurait convaincre. Dans chaque cas, sa pensée soit ne tient pas compte d’importantes questions soulevées par le mariage entre personnes de même sexe soit se fonde sur des prémisses inadéquates dans le but de faire interdire à une minorité vulnérable l’accès à une institution sociale garantie par l’État. (shrink)

“Spirit,” Hegel writes in par. 389 of the Encyclopaedia, “is the existent truth of matter—the truth that matter itself has no truth.” The same claim is made in more understandable form in the Zusatz which follows: “the material, which lacks independence in the face of spirit, is freely pervaded by the latter which overarches this its Other,” reducing this Other “to an ideal moment and to something mediated.” Philosophers who have written on Hegel will recognize these passages as ones which (...) call for a fair amount of exegesis. The issue I want to raise in this paper is rather different: just what argument does Hegel supply to establish that Spirit indeed is, as claimed, “the truth of,” or central to, the material world? What reason is given to show that we readers should agree that “the material has absolutely no meaning beyond that of being a negative over against spirit and over against itself?” I shall begin by considering one of the clearer answers to this question offered in recent literature on Hegel. I then shall discuss at much greater length how this answer requires to be supplemented. (shrink)

2014 Reprint of 1954 American Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. This two volume classic comprises two titles: "Patterns of Plausible Inference" and "Induction and Analogy in Mathematics." This is a guide to the practical art of plausible reasoning, particularly in mathematics, but also in every field of human activity. Using mathematics as the example par excellence, Polya shows how even the most rigorous deductive discipline is heavily dependent on techniques of guessing, inductive (...) reasoning, and reasoning by analogy. In solving a problem, the answer must be guessed at before a proof can be given, and guesses are usually made from a knowledge of facts, experience, and hunches. The truly creative mathematician must be a good guesser first and a good prover afterward; many important theorems have been guessed but no proved until much later. In the same way, solutions to problems can be guessed, and a god guesser is much more likely to find a correct solution. This work might have been called "How to Become a Good Guesser."-From the Dust Jacket. (shrink)

RésuméDans cet article, nous examinons le projet d'une critique de la raison historique mené par Wilhelm Dilthey et l'accusation d'historicisme portée contre lui par Heinrich Rickert. En comparant leurs tentatives respectives d'offrir un fondement philosophique aux sciences humaines, nous montrons que Dilthey et Rickert, en dépit de leurs divergences, convergent vers une réinterprétation productive de l'historicisme et conduisent à une reconfiguration de la relation entre philosophie et histoire. Cet article analyse trois implications théoriques et pratiques de l'historicisme : la mise (...) en valeur du particulier, le caractère historiquement situé du sujet connaissant et la primauté de la conscience historique. (shrink)

The paper gives a reconstruction of Donald Davidson’s theory of primary reasons in the context of the unified theory of meaning and action and its ontology of individual events. This is a necessary task to understand this philosophy of language and action because since his article “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” he has developed and modified his proposal on describing and explaining actions. He has expanded the “unified theory” to a composite theory of beliefs and desires as a total (...) theory of behavior. At first, the anomalous monism was a byproduct. Yet, the step to this philosophy of the mental is not contingent. It will be shown that the anomalous monism as the primary feature of the mental does not lead us to a materialic monism in our ontology. If the evidence of radical interpretation has no echo in natural science, we have to give up materialism.Following this, I will argue for a pure anomalism. Or, in other words, for the ascription of propositional attitudes given by the semantical analysis of sentences of such attitudes does not commit us to a materialistc framework in our ontological thinking. Yet, to understand Davidson’s unified theory, we have to grasp the role of individual events in this framework since the ontological reduction of individual events explains par example the relation between the mind and the body, and the possibility of autonomous action in the world of causality. I do not argue for a dualism of properties between the physical of the mental in the manner of other philosophers, since from the radical interpreters point the empirical restrictions of the speaker’s attitudes and behavior cannot be fixed for all cases. (shrink)

Cet article revient, à partir de la pensée de Jean-François Lyotard, sur la façon dont la première Théorie critique a mobilisé la psychanalyse à des fins de critique de la raison moderne. Dans ses textes des années 1970, Lyotard a proposé de croiser psychanalyse et économie politique en dialoguant de façon critique avec le croisement proposé par Adorno dans les années 40. L’article vise, par une lecture croisée d’Adorno et de Lyotard à propos du rapport entre psychanalyse et économie politique, (...) à mettre en relief les enjeux et les difficultés soulevés par cette approche critique opérant avec des concepts psychanalytiques. (shrink)

Summary By means of examples drawn from everyday experience, the author investigates what conditions must be satisfied in order that behaviour may be called rational or irrational. Does the attribution of irrationality apply to means or to ends? Is it based on consideration of the total cost? Is heroism irrational? Cannot what is irrational for one person be rational for another? Finally, the author uses this approach to come to the problem of induction and to that of moral freedom.RésuméL'auteur examine, (...) à l'aide d'exemples divers tiréds de l'expérience quotidienne, quelles sont les conditions qui doivent ětre remplies pour qu'on puisse qualifier une conduite de rationnelle ou d'irrationnelle. L'imputation d'irrationalité concerne‐t‐elle les moyens ou les buts? Se fonde‐t‐elle sur une estimation globale des coǔts? L'héroïsme est‐il irrationnel? Ce qui est irrationnel pour l'un ne peut‐il pas ětre rationnel pour un autre? Enfin, il aborde par ce biais le problème de l'induction et celui de la liberté morale.ZusammenfassungDer Verfasser untersucht aufgrund verschiedener aus dem Alltag gezogenen Beispiele die Frage, welches die Bedingungen sind, die erfüllt sein müssen, damit man ein Verhalten als rational bezeichnen kann. Bezieht sich das Zuschreiben von Irrationalität auf Mittel oder auf Ziele? Ist es auf der Einschätzung des Aufwandes begründet? Ist Heldentum irrational? Kann das, was dem einen als irrational gilt, einem andern nicht als rational gelten? Schliesslich wird über das Induktionsproblem das Problem der moralischen Freiheit angegangen. (shrink)

Dans cet article, je décris une partie de l’histoire des travaux sur le raisonnement humain mené par les philosophes et les psychologues en psychologie expérimentale. Ce travail interdisciplinaire particulier est intéressant, car il montre de quelles façons la recherche interdisciplinaire peut solidifier certaines idées préconçues omniprésentes dans un domaine particulier. Les travaux en psychologie expérimentale ont démontré que certains systèmes normatifs ne parviennent pas à modéliser le raisonnement dans des contextes de langage naturel. J’affirmerai, par conséquent, que les philosophes devraient (...) se servir de cette recherche psychologique comme motivation pour modifier ces modèles normatifs ou changer radicalement nos idées sur la manière dont ces modèles sont appliqués au raisonnement en langage naturel. (shrink)

For decades, philosophers and psychologists have assumed that children understand other people’s behavior on the basis of Belief Reasoning (BR) at latest by age 5 when they pass the false belief task. Furthermore, children’s use of BR in the true belief task has been regarded as being ontogenetically prior. Recent findings from developmental studies challenge this view and indicate that 4- to 5-year-old children make use of a reasoning strategy, which is cognitively less demanding than BR and called perceptual access (...) reasoning (PAR), in true belief tasks. I appeal to research on fluency to explain these findings. On my account, 4- to 5- year-old children understand other people’s behavior by means of BR if they experience cognitive strain (such as in false belief tasks) but they revert to simpler heuristics PAR when such an experience is missing (such as in true belief tasks). (shrink)

Un des problèmes persistants pour la philosophie pratique est de découvrir un procédé adéquat pour justifier des lois dont la finalité est de réguler le fonctionnement des démocraties constitutionnelles. Les libéraux partisans de la raison publique nient que cette justification puisse provenir de doctrines substantielles, étant donné que les lois doivent pouvoir être justifiées par tous les citoyens (raisonnables). La tradition de la loi naturelle offre un test utile quant à la plausibilité de cette thèse. L’article montre comment les deux (...) versions du libéralisme de la raison publique diffèrent quant à leur acceptation de raisons tirées du droit naturel, et pourquoi, étant donné l’influence de leurs points de départs disparates sur les critères normatifs par lesquels elles évaluent les lois, les partisans du droit naturel ont de bonnes raisons de les rejeter toutes les deux. (shrink)

The (moral) permissibility of an act is determined by the relative weights of reasons, or so I assume. But how many weights does a reason have? Weight Monism is the idea that reasons have a single weight value. There is just the weight of reasons. The simplest versions hold that the weight of each reason is either weightier than, less weighty than, or equal to every other reason. We’ll see that this simple view leads to paradox in (...) at least two ways. We must complicate the picture somehow. I consider two candidate complications. The first, Parity Monism, is inspired by Ruth Chang’s suggestion that parity is a fourth comparative beyond the traditional three (>, <, =). This view complicates the single weight relation by allowing that the weights of reasons can be on a par. Unfortunately, Parity Monism resolves only one of the two paradoxes that afflict simple versions of Weight Monism. To resolve both paradoxes, we need our second candidate complication, Weight Pluralism. This view holds that reasons have at least two weight values (e.g., justifying weight and requiring weight) and these two values aren’t always equivalent. Parity is no substitute for Pluralism. (shrink)

Amartya Sen argues that a conception of impartiality built upon “trans-positional objectivity” provides a potential remedy to conflicts of distributive justice by securing the most “reasonable reasons” in a debate. This article undertakes a critical analysis of Sen’s theory by contrasting it with Paul Ricoeur’s claim that impartiality is a normative concept and therefore that the demand faced within the arena of competing distributive claims is not one of providing the most reasonable reasons but of exposing and understanding (...) the role of convictions that underwrite normative frameworks, or ethical orders. -/- Amartya Sen soutient qu’une idée de l’impartialité qui se fonde sur une objectivité «trans-positionelle» offre un remède possible aux conflits de la justice distributive en s’assurant d’obtenir les «raisons» les plus «raisonnables» dans un débat. Cet article a pour intention principale de formuler une critique de l’hypothèse de Sen en la contrastant avec l’interprétation de l’impartialité proposée par Paul Ricœur. Selon Ricœur, l’impartialité est un concept normatif. Par conséquent, la tâche à assumer est de révéler et de comprendre le rôle des convictions qui établissent les bases des cadres normatifs et des systèmes éthiques, et non de procurer les raisons les plus raisonnables. (shrink)

In the second Critique, Kant claims that the moral law is given as a fact of reason. In this paper, contra the standard view, I argue that there is a non-dogmatic way of defending this claim. And Kant’s principle of morality is widely taken to be a formal principle. How then can such a formal principle be reconciled with our substantial moral end? In this paper, I also argue that Kant’s principle of morality can be construed as a formal principle (...) in the sense that it provides correctness conditions for moral laws, rather than providing specific moral laws.Dans sa deuxième Critique, Kant affirme que la loi morale se donne comme un fait de raison. Dans cet article, contrairement à la position standard, nous prétendons qu’il existe une autre façon — non dogmatique — de défendre cette affirmation. Par ailleurs, le principe de moralité de Kant est largement considéré comme étant formel. Comment un tel principe formel peut-il être réconcilié avec notre fin morale substantielle? Nous soutenons également que le principe de moralité de Kant peut être interprété comme un principe formel dans le sens où il fournit des conditions d’acceptabilité pour les lois morales, et non des lois morales spécifiques. (shrink)

In contrast with the two dominant views in Theory of Mind development, the Perceptual Access Reasoning hypothesis of Fabricius and colleagues is that children don’t understand the mental state of belief until around 6 years of age. Evidence for this includes data that many children ages 4 and 5, who pass the standard 2-location false belief task, nonetheless fail the true belief task, and often fail a 3-location false belief task by choosing the irrelevant option. These findings can be explained (...) by the PAR hypothesis but pose challenges for the two dominant views. I argue against an alternate hypothesis which is proposed by Anika Fiebich in a recent paper. According to Fiebich, PAR is not a distinct transitional stage in children’s theory of mind development, but is a fast and frugal System 1 heuristic which fades once children become fluent in social reasoning. However, I point out a number of problems with Fiebich’s proposal and argue for the superiority of the PAR hypothesis. I also present five reasons to be skeptical about the findings of Perner and Horn which purportedly show that 4- and 5-year-olds can pass the 3-location false belief task when suitably modified. This is a further difficulty for Fiebich’s proposal, since she relies on these findings in her fluency theory. Finally, I sketch a dual systems theory of mind account based upon the PAR hypothesis which is different from Fiebich’s. (shrink)

In this reply, we provide an analysis of Alter et al. response to our earlier paper. In that paper, we reported difficulty in replicating Alter, Oppenheimer, Epley, and Eyre’s main finding, namely that a sense of disfluency produced by making stimuli difficult to perceive, increased accuracy on a variety of reasoning tasks. Alter, Oppenheimer, and Epley argue that we misunderstood the meaning of accuracy on these tasks, a claim that we reject. We argue and provide evidence that the tasks were (...) not too difficult for our populations and point out that in many cases performance on our tasks was well above chance or on a par with Alter et al.’s participants. Finally, we reiterate our claim that the distinction between answer fluency and perceptual fluency is genuine, and argue that Thompson et al. provided evidence that these are distinct factors that have different downstream effects on cognitive processes. (shrink)

Selon une lecture classique, la théorie benthamienne de la démocratie est fondée sur le principe du principe selon lequel l’agrégation des suffrages individuels reflète l’intérêt public. C’est pourquoi les commentateurs ont en général porté leur attention sur la façon dont le vote réalise l’agrégation des intérêts individuels plutôt que sur les délibérations publiques qui précèdent le vote. Récemment, Peter Niesen et Oren Ben-Dor ont pourtant étudié les processus de délibération collective chez Bentham. Cet article pointe des difficultés avec ces deux (...) approches. D’une part, en s’appuyant principalement sur la Tactique des Assemblées législatives, P. Niesen limite la portée de sa démonstration. L’analyse originale d’O. Ben-Dor prend en compte les écrits de Bentham sur la persuasion et les pressions exercées par la communauté sur les individus pour montrer comment se constitue un « consensus utilitariste » dans une société politique donnée. Pourtant, il néglige le fait que Bentham ne parle jamais de « consensus », et que cette idée même est contraire à ses idéaux démocratiques. En effet, Bentham dénonce à plusieurs reprises l’influence manipulatrice exercée par les élites et cherche à en briser les mécanismes. Faut-il faire de Bentham l’un des penseurs de la délibération publique, au risque d’occulter des aspects importants de sa théorie démocratique? (shrink)

The contributors to this Special Issue all suggest that Christianity is compatible with political liberalism. In this paper, I first illuminate the grounds of this compatibility. I then focus on one distinctive—yet unexplored—premise of the compatibility argument. This is the thought that religious and secular reasons are essentially on a par, in terms of their contribution to public reasoning. I critically examine Christopher Eberle’s claim that, as their epistemological status is equivalent, both secular and religious reasons may play (...) a decisive role in justifying coercion-related state policies, including in contexts of war. (shrink)

La compréhension de la raison humaine a été déterminante pour la phénoménologie de Husserl. Des Recherches logiques à la Krisis , le problème de la raison semble l'un de ses principaux thèmes de réflexion. Husserl aborde la question sous plusieurs angles distincts, évoquant les concepts de monde, de temps et de responsabilité. Ses découvertes l'ont conduit à identifier la crise de la culture. Les commentateurs doivent aujourd'hui mettre en question le concept husserlien de raison, s'ils veulent comprendre pleinement cette thèse. (...) Cet article fait valoir que le concept de raison de Husserl est élaboré en corrélation avec celui de non-raison, conduisant les phénoménologues à adopter une division binaire entre rationalité et irrationalité. Par contraste avec les commentateurs qui accentuent le caractère rationnel de la phénoménologie husserlienne, cet article affirme que l'introduction du concept d'irrationalité dans l'investigation phénoménologique élargit significativement la compréhension initiale de la phénoménologie telle qu'elle est définie dans les Recherches . Husserl fut confronté à cette question par ses propres recherches. En conséquence, on affirme ici que la phénoménologie a connu un développement immanent menant de la thèse de la raison objective à celle de la corrélation entre raison et non-raison. (shrink)

Rerum Novarum, the papal encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, has had a major impact on Catholic thinking. Issued in 1891 it immediately received much public attention. This was especially the case in the United States where it was seen as the response re-affirming the sanctity of private property long sought by the American bishops in the public debates with Henry George and his supporters. George was a central public figure in the United States, England and Ireland, whose speeches and writings (...) supported free market ideas, especially free trade. But, George's main idea was that the sole tax should be a singletax on land values.His justification seemed to place the sanctity of private property in doubt. Since some Catholics were strong supporters of George, the Catholic bishops were anxious that the Pope clearly state the morality of private property. Rather than condemn the writings of George directly, Leo XIII prefered to reaffirm the sanctity of private property in a positive form. The American origins of Rerum Novarum had not been appropriately recognized.Rerum Novarum, l’encyclique papale de Léon XIII, a eu un impact majeur sur la pensée catholique. Publiée en 1891 elle reçut immédiatement une très grande attention. Ce fut spécialement le cas aux Etats-Unis où elle fut prise comme une réponse réaffirmant le caractère sacré de la propriété privée longtemps recherchée par les évêques Américains dans leurs débats publics avec Henry George et ses partisans. George était un personnage public central aux Etats-Unis, en Angleterre et en Irlande, dont les discours et les écrits étaient en faveur des idées du libre marché et notamment celles qui concernent l’échange libre. Mais, l’idée majeure de George était que le seul impôt qui devait exister était celui sur la valeur des terrains.Sa justification semblait émettre des doutes à l’égard du caractère sacré de la propriété privée. Alors que quelques Catholiques étaient de forts partisans de George, les évêques catholiques tenaient beaucoup à ce que le Pape se positionne clairement sur la moralité de la propriété privée. Plutôt que de condamner directement les écrits de George, Léon XIII préféra réaffirmer le caractère sacré de la propriété privée de manière positive. Les origines américaines de Rerum Novarum n’ont pas été reconnues à leur juste valeur. (shrink)

Socrates et Platon sont à l'origine de ce qu'on entend traditionnellement par raison - les philosophes qui cherchent la façon juste de vivre qui dépasse la sagesse conventionnelle. 'Jérusalem' fait référence à la foi dont l'origine est l'appel de Dieu à Abraham, le père commun des religions juive, chrétienne et musulmane, et qui se rapporte à la transformation que Dieu offre à l'humanité qu'il sanctifie. Il a fallu attendre le XIIe siècle et l'entrée des oeuvres philosophiques d'Aristote dans l'Occident latin (...) pour que Thomas d'Aquin initie une réconciliation entre la foi et la raison. Le présent article examine la pensée thomiste à ce sujet et son évolution jusqu'à nos jours. (shrink)

According to Pettit, an account of freedom in terms of rational control fails to suffice, for he argues that such an account lacks the resources to rule out coerced actions as unfree. The crucial feature of a coerced action is that it leaves the agent with a choice to make, an apparently rational choice to make. To the extent that it does this, it would seem to leave the agent as free as he would be in any other case where (...) there is a choice to be made. However, we do not consider actions that are coerced to be on a par with actions that are not coerced, that are performed freely as we might say. We do not hold agents similarly responsible in the two sorts of cases. So it would seem that the rational control account fails, for it appears to fail to vindicate this differential practice. In this paper, I defend the rational control account. I outline two ways in which proponents of a rational control model, broadly understood, can respond to this criticism. (shrink)

Le choix de l’unité statistique de segmentation du corpus, ainsi que celui de la distance entre les réponses, induit une structure sur l’ensemble des réponses. Nous proposons d’appliquer une méthodologie statistique, l’analyse factorielle multiple pour tableaux de contingence, AFMTC, pour, d’une part, comparer les structures induites sur un même corpus par différentes unités statistiques et, d’autre part, définir une distance entre textes capable de prendre en compte différentes unités et de profiter ainsi de l’information véhiculée par chacune d’elles. Pour présenter (...) cette méthodologie, généralisation de l’analyse des correspondances aux tableaux de contingence multiples, on utilise une enquête auprès de femmes divorcées qui comporte une question ouverte sur les raisons de leur divorce. Comparison between the structures that are induced by the choice of the statistical unitThe election of the statistical unit, as well as that of the distance between responses, induces a structure on the whole of the responses. We propose to apply a statistical methodology, the multiple factorial analysis for contingency table, MFACT, in order to, on the one hand, compare the structures induced on a same corpus by different statistical units and, on the other hand, define a distance between texts able to take into account different units and so take advantage of the information that they convey. To present this methodology, a generalisation of correspondence analysis to multiple contingency tables, we use a survey carried out on divorced women, that includes an open-ended question about the reasons of their divorce. (shrink)

Bolzano fut le premier philosophe à établir une distinction explicite entre les procédés déductifs qui nous permettent de parvenir à la certitude d’une vérité et ceux qui fournissent son fondement objectif. La conception que Bolzano se fait du rapport entre ce que nous appelons ici, d’une part, « conséquence subjective », à savoir la relation de raison à conséquence épistémique et, d’autre part, la « conséquence objective », c’est-à-dire la fondation , suggère toutefois que Bolzano défendait une conception « explicativiste (...) » de la preuve : les preuves par excellence sont celles qui reflètent l’ordre de la fondation objective. Dans cet article nous faisons état des problèmes liés à une telle conception et argumentons en faveur d’une démarcation plus stricte entre la préoccupation ontologique et la préoccupation épistémologique dans l’élaboration d’une théorie de la preuve.Bolzano was the first to establish an explicit distinction between the deductive methods that allow us to recognise the certainty of a given truth and those that provide its objective ground. His conception of the relation between what we, in this paper, call “subjective consequence”, i.e. the relation from epistemic reason to consequence and “objective consequence”, i.e. grounding however suggests that Bolzano advocated an “explicativist” conception of proof : proofs par excellence are those that reflect the objective order of grounding. In this paper, we expose the problems involved by such a conception and argue in favour of a more rigorous demarcation between the ontological and the epistemological concern in the elaboration of a theory of proof. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, see the following excerpt: -/- Though his work has until now gone untranslated and been largely ignored in English scholarship, the historian of philosophy François Châtelet played a major role in the development of French thought that is on par with that of his more well-known contemporaries. Born in 1925, Châtelet was founding member of the University of Vincennes, Paris VIII’s experimental department of philosophy alongside Michel Foucault in the aftermath of the 1968 student protests. (...) In 1983, he would establish the Collège Internationale de Philosophie in Paris along with other prominent philosophers, an institution that in Alessandra Campana’s words, is at “the forefront of militant and engaged critical thinking,” in which it has sought to “relocate philosophy at the intersection of science, politics, psychoanalysis, art and literature, jurisprudence, and economy.” Châtelet’s association with radical educational institutions and the interdisciplinarity of research undertaken at the latter both point to what can be understood to be the essence of his philosophical project: that the history of philosophy is also a politics of philosophy. La Grèce Classique, La Raison, L’État, which was first published in 1978 and appears here in translation for the first time under the title Classical Greece, Reason, and the State, is exemplary in this regard, providing a powerful critique of the history of philosophy and its purported Greek origins. As Deleuze argues, Châtelet reveals that “Athens was not the advent of an eternal reason, but the singular event of a provisional rationalisation. In this view, the essence of classical philosophy cannot be extended to the contemporary era—neither in its original form, or in a revised form that has been modified and updated across the passage of time. Therefore, by politicising philosophy and its history, Châtelet’s work also shows philosophy to be indicative of a particular cultural moment, rather than as an the state, philosophy, and the tyranny of the logos · isolated discipline cut off from the influences of material life. He establishes a form of ‘rational empiricism’ for conducting a history of political philosophy that rejects universality for potentiality. Said otherwise, his work is indicative of what might be called the poststructuralist critique of historical narrative surrounding the canon of western thought, a critique that Michael Hardt rightfully argues “has problematised the foundations of philosophical and political thought.” However, Châtelet has made important contributions to the poststructuralist approach to theorising the western tradition that remain novel and insightful to a contemporary audience, rather than simply being one of many to problematise philosophy’s purported foundations. (shrink)

Des philosophes théistes comme Thomas D. Sullivan ont adapté les arguments cosmologiques bases sur le Principe de raison suffisante pour les ajuster à la cosmologie contemporaine du Big Bang Leur thèse centrale est que uisque le Big Bang n'a pas pu avoir une cause physique et puisque tout a une cause, le Big Bang a dû avoir une cause non physique ou surnaturelle. Des philosophes non théistes qui acceptent la cosmologie standard du Big Bang ont remis en question la vérité (...) de PRS, en soutenant que certains événements peuvent se produire sans aucune cause. Quentin Smith a défendu l'idée que PRS n'est pas du tout évident par lui-meme et qu'il y a en fait de bonnes raisons de supposer que des choses comme des singularites peuvent se produire sans cause. Thomas D. Sullivan a répliqué à l'argument de Smith voulant que PRS ne soit pas évident par lui-même, et il afourni en outre une pretendue preuve de PRS. Je soutiens dans cet article que PRS, en réalité, n'est pas évident par soi-même et que l'argument de Sullivan en faveur du contraire repose sur un malentendu quant à ce que nous entendons généralement pas «évident par lui-même». J'essaie également de montrer que la preuve de PRS fournie par Sullivan souffre de nombreuses difficultés. Si j'ai raison sur tout cela le PRS nest pas evident par lui-même et nous ne disposons d'aucun argument en safaveur. Il n'en découle pas que PRS soit faux, mais il en découle que nous sommes justifiés de ne pas être convaincus par les arguments en faveur de l'existence de Dieu qui prennent PRS pour prémisse. (shrink)

This article is about the Indian Evidence Act. It also explains how evidence is the script that carries law’s unconscious. One one hand, evidence is the site of reason, on the other hand it is also the performative site of the unconscious. The operation of the Evidence Act requires a court, arguments, ways of producing evidence, counter-arguments, scrutiny of the nature of the evidence submitted, and finally the disputation around what constitutes an evidence, and then the judgement. The article argues (...) through a brief presentation of the history of the Act, how law in this way combines the normative and the performative – science of inquiry and the unpredictable script of outcome, procedure and the spectacle built around elements such as - live deposition and the hermeneutic power of the image, rational considerations and emotion, virtuality and the event, serious business in the court and the element of drama. The article suggests with a bit of irony the injunction that to see what law is and how it functions we can go to the cinema; to see what cinema is we can go to the court. (shrink)

Marsílio de Pádua (1280-1343) foi um pensador da Idade Média que escreveu duas obras de filosofia política que influenciaram a modernidade. Este estudo analisa o termo valencior pars, da obra Defensor Pacis. Marsílio parece definir essa parte preponderante como sendo a representação do conjunto dos cidadãos que não tem uma natureza débil. Isso sugere que a valencior pars é tanto qualitativamente superior quanto uma maioria numérica dos cidadãos. O apelo a uma mistura de considerações quantitativas e qualitativas era familiar no (...) contexto das eleições medievais da Igreja, que geralmente apoiava a parte maior e mais razoável (maior et saniors pars) das instituições eleitorais. Marsílio sugere que a valencior pars pode ser identificada com o costume honrado do governo, entretanto, parece que a mesma corresponde a qualquer parte da coletividade cuja decisão eleitoral é decisiva. Nesse sentido, o filósofo paduano está de acordo com a análise original de Aristóteles. Marsilius of Padua (1280-1343) was a philosopher of the Middle Ages who wrote two books of political philosophy that have influenced modernity. This study analyzes the term valencior pars in the Defensor Pacis. Marsilius appears to define this preponderant part of the population as representing that part of the citizenry who do not have a debilitated nature. This suggests that the valencior pars is a much a qualitatively superior as a numerically greater part of the citizenry. The appeal to a mixture of quantitative and qualitative considerations was familiar in the context of the medieval church, which habitually supported the greater and more reasonable part (maior et sanior pars) of electoral institutions. Marsilius also suggests, however, that the valencior pars can be identified with this honored custom of government. It seems then, that the valencior pars is whatever part of the citizenry whose electoral decision is decisive. In this, Marsilius is at one with Aristotle's original analysis. (shrink)

Pascal and the „Proof by Power“. Nietzsche’s Examination of a wounded intellectual conscience. This paper sheds new light on Nietzsche’s praise of Pascal’s probity by analysing what the German philosopher calls the „proof by power“. This proof, adopted by Christianity at large, consists in making pleasure and well-being the very criteria of truth and, as such, it represents for Nietzsche a sheer dishonest form of reasoning. When Pascal finally decides to use this proof in the Pensées, he is already conscious (...) of its lack of scientific value and of its dishonesty. Nietzsche thus reveals in Pascal’s thinking the torments of a wounded intellectual conscience, torn between its fidelity to the Christian tradition and its probity inspired by this very piety. In this respect, the famous wager’s argument appears as a testimony of this tension: it is a brilliant but desperate attempt of giving this „proof by power“, which the scientific rigor it is fundamentally lacking. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Cet article se propose de montrer comment la critique de la théorie contractualiste opérée par David Hume est la conséquence politique de son analyse de la causalité. Hume rejette le contractualisme avant tout pour des raisons méthodologiques : une explication par les causes finales n’est jamais une explication satisfaisante. Or, le contractualisme applique au domaine politique l’argument du desseinprésenté dans les Dialogues sur la religion naturelle. La genèse du politique déployée dans le Traité de la nature humaine doit alors (...) être envisagée comme l’application particulière du seul mode d’explication pertinent des phénomènes, l’histoire naturelle, où la sympathie configure et reconfigure, de manière immanente, la société. À la causalité finale, il faut substituer la causalité efficiente. La théorie politique de Hume dans ses deux versants, négatif et positif, est indissociable de son épistémologie.ABSTRACT: This article proposes to show how David Hume’s critique of contractualism is the political consequence of his analysis of causality. Hume rejects contractualism mainly for methodological reasons: explanations based on final causes are never satisfying. Therefore, contractualism applies to the political sphere the argument from design presented in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. The genesis of politics unfolded in A Treatise of Human Nature must be seen as a particular application of the only pertinent way of explaining phenomena, i. e., natural history, in which sympathy immanently configures and reconfigures society. The final cause must be replaced by the efficient cause. Hume’s political theory-either positive or negative-and epistemology cannot be dissociated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE TWOFOLD DIVISION OF ST. THOMAS'S CHRISTOLOGY IN THE TERTIA PARS JOHN F. BOYLE UniveYsity ofSt. Thomas St. Paul, Minnesota ST. THOMAS AQUINAS divides the tertia pars of his Summa theologiae into three parts, the first of which, embracing the first fifty-nine questions, is on the Savior Himself. This section, in turn, is divided into two parts: the first considers the mystery of the incarnation (qq. 1-26); the second, (...) that done and suffered by the Savior (qq. 27-59). How are we to understand this seemingly straightforward division? As the latter half deals with the life of Christ, M.-D. Chenu saw it as essentially scriptural, in implied contrast to a more scientific consideration in the first section.1 It is precisely this distinction between the scientific and the scriptural, however, that is problematic and that needs to be evaluated critically in light of Thomas's conception of sacra doctrina. The twofold division of christology that appears in the tertia pars is one of many organizational innovations in the Summa, representing Thomas's answer to a problem with which his predecessors and contemporaries struggled; the organization of christology. Because Christ is a historical figure, the problems of the historian also beset the theologian. The facts of history occur in a temporal sequence'and, for this reason, history is in part a temporal narrative. The historian, however, wants to do more than tell a good story; he wants to explain it. He therefore seeks those categories of intelligibility that will explain why certain events happen in the way they do: the role terrain plays in sue1 M.-D. Chenu, TowaYd Undeystanding Saint Thomas, trans. A.-M. Landry and D. Hughes {Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964), pp. 315-17. 439 440 JOHN F. BOYLE cessful military strategy, for example, or the motives (economic, psychological, or social) that move men to action. Through an abundant number of such categories, the historian tries to make sense of history. In this lies his problem. The categories that interpret what happens have their own principles and rules of exposition, which may not be wholly compatible with a narrative sequence. For this reason, the historian is torn between two masters in his work: the narrative sequence and the categories of intelligibility. The theologian, in considering the life and mission of Christ, confronts much the same problem. He has before him both the temporal narrative of that life and the need to understand and explain it, albeit far more profoundly than the historian can. For his information on the life of Christ, the theologian is dependent upon Scripture; the fourfold Gospel narrates the story of Christ's life. For his primary categories of intelligibility, the theologian is also dependent upon Scripture. For example, the Gospel proclaims that Christ is the Word made flesh and thereby understands the import of Christ's life, passion, death, and resurrection. The epistles provide a great number of decisive categories that interpret the mission of Christ: Christ the redeemer of a fallen humanity; Christ the true mediator between God and man; Christ the great high priest; Christ the head of the Church. The theologian must make sense of the life and mission of Christ in such a way as to account for the varied themes and categories already provided by Scripture. Likewise, he must seek to understand and make sense of these categories themselves. In a temporal narrative of Christ's life, there is no obvious place for the treatment of His mediatorship, priesthood, or headship. Each extends throughout, and even beyond, His earthly life, although each is intimately bound to particular aspects of that life. The problem is thus one in which both the narrative and its primary categories of intelligibility are in Scripture. It is not simply making sense of history, it is making sense of Scripture. The task is to formulate a christology that is in some way adequate to the New Testament revelation about Christ. Thomas's predecessors and contemporaries ST. THOMAS'S CHRISTOLOGY 441 struggled to organize and explain not only history but also its biblical interpretation.2 A brief consideration of how Peter Lombard,3 the compilers of the Summa fratris Alexandri,4 and Albert... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DISTINGUISHING CHARITY AS GOODNESS AND PRUDENCE AS RIGHTNESS: A KEY TO THOMAS'S SECUNDA PARS JAMES F. KEENAN, S.J. Weston School of Theology Cambridge, Massachusetts HE RESPECTIVE functions of charity and prudence Thomas Aquinas's moral theology provide a key to his nderstanding of the virtues. Charity and prudence serve distinct functions. In Thomas's position, a person can have the acquired virtues without having charity; such a person has a virtuous (...) life, but it is unified by prudence, not by charity. But why is such a person without charity? Is this absence of charity due simply to the absence of faith? Is this person with the four acquired virtues but without charity simply an unbeliever? Or is this person simply a rightly-ordered person whose lack of charity is due to the absence of personal moral goodness? Is such a person simply one who, in common parlance, is a well-integrated person but not necessarily a morally good one? In a word, is moral goodness a necessary condition for the acquired moral virtues? To answer this question we will begin with the contemporary distinction between goodness and rightness and then discuss the two virtues and their functions. In the final section we will relate our findings to present-day problems in the ethics of virtue. I. Goodness an_d Rightness Since Democritus we have realized that living rightly is not necessarily an indication of being good. Democritus noted that being good required not only that we act rightly but that we want 407 408 JAMES F. KEENAN, S.J. to act rightly.1 Over the centuries philosophers and theologians have consistently made reference to the fact that living rightly, or as they called it " doing the good," was not a sufficient condition for describing a person as good. From Ambrose and Augustine to the present, authors have insisted that a moral description of persons is more than a mere deduction from external activity.2 Some writers, however, did not simply make reference to this distinction, but rather spent considerable time in commenting on the insight involved. Kant, for instance, in his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals distinguished from the beginning between action!> done out of duty (Handeln aus Pfiicht) and dutiful actions (pfiichtmiissiges H andeln). In attempting to describe the only thing which we can call " good," that is, the will, Kant argued that a dutiful act was only good if the act was done out of duty. For example, a state executioner who executes on account of his duty to execute is good and the action is good. But if the executioner performs the dutiful act on some other account, then the action is not good, though it is dutiful. Interestingly Kant did not consider whether an act not dutiful could be called good: Is an executioner who acts out of duty but botches the job still to be called good? George Moore in his Ethics made a similar point but for different reasons. Unlike Kant's interest in goodness, Moore wanted to describe a right action free of any consideration of an agent's motives and his solution was utilitarianism. In the process of separating the agent's action, Moore realized that the right act of a person with bad motivations involves a paradox: " A man may actually deserve the strongest moral condemnation for choosing an action which is morally right." 3 However, like 1 See his Fragmenta M oralia, no. 109, as cited in Stephen Toulmin, An Examination of the Place of Reason in Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 170. 2 Bruno Schuller of Miinster provides ample historical evidence in his Die Begrundung sittlicher Urteile (Diisseldorf: Patmos, 1980), 140. 3 George Moore, Ethics (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1912), 193-5. Cf. H. J. Paton, "The Alleged Independence of Goodness," in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, ed. P. Schilpp (New York: Tudor, 1952), 113-134; Richard Hare, The Language of Morals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964). GOODNESS AND PRUDENCE AS RIGHTNESS 409 Kant, Moore did not discuss a person who sought to act rightly but who failed actually to perform a right action. Contemporary moral theology has carried the distinction further. Moral theologians like Bruno... (shrink)

In recent years noise seems to have become an interdisciplinary concept par excellence, apt to capturing important dynamics at work whether in technological, scientific, social, or aesthetic domains. But when economists, biologists, psychologists, and musicians speak of noise, are they really all referring to the same thing? In An Epistemology of Noise Cecile Malaspina takes this dispersion of the notion of noise as a starting point, and moreover accepts that, when removed from its mathematical formulation in information theory and spread (...) into diverse disciplines, noise takes on a metaphorical ambiguity. Yet rather than aiming to eliminate this ambiguity, Malaspina sets out to account for it. The key problem in An Epistemology of Noise is not to identify the legitimate usage of the concept of noise, but rather to examine what happens when noise moves between disciplines, and what the ‘noisiness’ of this movement tells us about the conditions for interdisciplinary knowledge. Noise here is both an object (or many objects) of inquiry and a condition for that inquiry, and presents us with the problem of how knowledge can find its ground in these ‘shifting sands’ (9). (shrink)