It is commonly believed that Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics argues for a "dominant end" intellectualist theory of the human good. This theory specifies contemplative activity as the sole element in the best life for man, and it implies that all other goods, including moral and political activities, have value only as means to contemplative activity. It is conceded that Aristotle sometimes appears to regard the highest good as an "inclusive end," an end composed of several independently valued things, but this is (...) typically regarded as an inconsistency. It is claimed that ultimately, the Stragirite identifies the human good with contemplation alone, and thus finds no salient value in altruism or any genuinely moral behavior. ;This dissertation challenges the idea that the Nicomachean Ethics advances an intellectualist theory of the human good. It argues that Aristotle consistently presents an inclusive end view which not only accommodates, but emphasizes, the intrinsic worth of social and moral activities. And it argues that Aristotle's eudaimon--the man who has realized the good life--possesses and exercises all of the distinctively human virtues, not merely those of the theoretical intellect. ;Chapter I begins the argument for this interpretation with an analysis of Aristotle's metaethics. In chapter II, we examine the arguments of NE I. 1-7 which purport to show that the human good is eudaimonia . We also challenge the widely held views that at NE I.2 Aristotle advances a fallacious argument for the existence of one supreme end of human action and he espouses the doctrine of Psychological Eudaimonism, the view that every human action is undertaken, ultimately, for the sake of the acting agent's happiness. Chapter III begins with a discussion of the meaning of eudaimonia. The greater part of the chapter, however, is a detailed analysis of the so-called "function argument" at NE I.7. The fourth final chapter is devoted to an intensive examination of the discussion of contemplation presented in NE X. 6-8. We maintain that the evidence strongly suggests that Aristotle consistently argues for an inclusive end conception of the good throughout the Nicomachean Ethics. (shrink)

If humans have an evolved moral psychology, then we should not expect it to function in an identical way between individuals. Instead, we should expect a diversity in the function of our moral psychology between individuals that varies along genetic lines, and a corresponding diversity of moral attitudes and moral judgements that emerge from it. This is because there was no one psychological type that would reliably produce adaptive social behaviour in the highly heterogeneous environments in which our minds evolved. (...) As such, there was no single psychological type towards which evolution could gravitate. Instead we evolved a stable polymorphism of psychological types, maintained by frequency-dependent selection, each predisposed towards particular social and moral attitudes and behaviours. This can help explain the existence of moral diversity, particularly intra-cultural moral diversity, and seemingly intractable moral disagreement. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend a conception of Deleuze’s two volumes dedicated to film – Cinema I: The Movement-Image, and Cinema II: The Time-Image – as protracted expressions of his political philosophy. In this context, I will elaborate the difficult and entwined political claims Deleuze makes on behalf of cinema: that it is capable of engendering a tentative ‘belief in the world’, such as is the necessary correlate of political action; that it captures the contemporary political fact that ‘the people (...) are missing’, as a unified or coherent political agent; and finally that it might reveal those ‘impossible’ or ‘intolerable’ situations which would provoke such a people into being. In advancing this conceptual triumvirate, I will argue that the claims made here on behalf of cinema overspill the art form itself, linking up with Deleuze’s broader political ontology of thought and constituting a generalised political philosophy proper to so-called ‘late-capitalism’. (shrink)

This article details day-to-day ethics issues facing MBAs who occupy entry-level and mid-level management positions and offers defined examples of the stressors these managers face. The study includes lower-level managers, essentially excluded from extant literature, and focuses on workplace behaviors both undertaken and observed. Results indicate that pressures from internal organization sources, and ambiguity in letter versus spirit of rules, account for over a third of the most frequent unethical situations encountered, and that most managers did not expect to face (...) those issues. Various contextual factors accounted for 32% of the organizational factors that affected decisions. We discuss implications for the workplace, especially the unique ethics challenges for newer managers. (shrink)

I present Dean Zimmerman’s conceptualization of the varieties of substance dualism. I then focus attention on a form of dualism that he has discussed briefly in a few places, Thomistic dualism as he calls it, or hylomorphic dualism, as I call it. After explicating hylomorphic dualism, I consider the two places where Zimmerman says the most about it, finding, in one case, a way to alleviate a worry he raises using the resources internal to hylomorphism, and, in the other (...) case, a general agreement with his categorizing hylomorphic dualism as an intermediary position between substance dualism and materialism. Since hylomorphic dualism is something of an intermediary position between substance dualism and materialism, it stands to reason that it could be susceptible to attack from both sides. Thus, in the last portions of this article I consider the arguments Zimmerman answers against dualism and levels against materialism. I argue that the hylomorphic theorist can answer the charges against dualism at least as well as the other dualists can. I find that the main argument against materialism that Zimmerman provides, if sound, would also show any composite form of dualism to be false, too. Happily, the hylomorphic thinker has a method of denying the truth of the first premise of that argument, and so, of denying the soundness of the argument. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Metaphysics is the forum for the best new work in this flourishing field. Much of the most interesting work in philosophy today is metaphysical in character: this new series is a much-needed focus for it. OSM offers a broad view of the subject, featuring not only the traditionally central topics such as existence, identity, modality, time, and causation, but also the rich clusters of metaphysical questions in neighbouring fields, such as philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. (...) Besides independent essays, volumes will often contain a critical essay on a recent book, or a symposium that allows participants to respond to one another's criticisms and questions. Anyone who wants to know what's happening in metaphysics can start here. Volume Two begins with a major paper on consciousness by Ned Block. Block examines 'Max Black's Objection to Mind-Body Identity', an argument for a dualism of physical and phenomenal properties, closely related to Jackson's 'knowledge argument'. His extensive exploration of this family of arguments for property dualism includes considerable discussion of John Perry and Stephen White; their responses to Block's paper complete the section on the metaphysics of consciousness.Three papers consider the thesis that the future is, in some sense, 'open'. Eli Hirsch elaborates a view according to which contingent statements about the future can be indeterminate in truth-value, while preserving 'straight logic', including a principle of bivalence. Peter Forrest defends a sort of 'growing block' theory of the passage of time, emphasizing the way such a metaphysics, combined with a truth-maker principle, can provide an analysis of natural necessity. Trenton Merricks presents a trenchant and original criticism of the 'growing block' theory of time.The volume continues with a group of papers on problems of ontology. Thomas Hofweber's paper, defending nominalism from the objection that there are 'inexpressible' properties and propositions, won the first annual Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Younger Scholar Prize. The papers by Phillip Bricker and Michael Loux examine a couple of deep divides within ontology. John Hawthorne's paper raises some extremely puzzling questions about the nature of persons, given the ontology needed for Timothy Williamson's theory of vagueness. Hawthorne uses these problems to motivate an alternative style of epistemicism. The final three papers take up several issues in the metaphysics of traditional theism. Michael Bergmann and Jeffrey Brower raise objections to combining a Platonic conception of universals with the doctrine of divine aseity; while Brian Leftow defends a non-Platonic theory of universals - a kind of divine-concept nominalism. Hud Hudson suggests that contemplation of the possibility of higher dimensions opens up new avenues in theodicy. (shrink)

Purpose: to characterize ethics course content, structure, resources, pedagogic methods, and opinions among academic administrators and course directors at U.S. medical schools. Method: An online questionnaire addressed to academic deans and ethics course directors identified by medical school websites was emailed to 157 Association of American Medical Colleges member medical schools in two successive waves in early 2022. Descriptive statistics were utilized to summarize responses. Results: Representatives from 61 (39%) schools responded. Thirty-two (52%) respondents were course directors; 26 (43%) were (...) deans of academic affairs, medical education, or curriculum; and 3 with other roles also completed the survey (5%). All 61 schools reported some form of formal ethics education during the first year of medical school, with most (n = 54, 89%) reporting a formal mandatory introductory course during preclinical education. Schools primarily utilized lecture and small-group teaching methods. Knowledge-based examinations, attendance, and participation were most commonly used for assessment. A large majority regarded ethics as equally or more important than other foundational courses, but fewer (n = 37, 60%) provided faculty training for teaching ethics. Conclusions: Despite a response rate of 39 percent, the authors conclude that medical schools include ethics in their curricula in small-group and lecture formats with heterogeneity regarding content taught. Preclinical curricular redesigns must innovate and implement best practices for ensuring sound delivery of ethics content in future curricula. Additional large-scale research is necessary to determine said best practices. (shrink)

We present an original emergent individuals view of human persons, on which persons are substantial biological unities that exemplify metaphysically emergent mental states. We argue that this view allows for a coherent model of identity-preserving resurrection from the dead consistent with orthodox Christian doctrine, one that improves upon alternatives accounts recently proposed by a number of authors. Our model is a variant of the “falling elevator” model advanced by Dean Zimmerman that, unlike Zimmerman’s, does not require a closest continuer (...) account of personal identity. We end by raising some remaining theological concerns. (shrink)

The book includes contributions by Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, George F. R. Ellis, Christopher D. Frith, Mark Hallett, David Hodgson, Owen D. Jones, Alicia Juarrero, J. A. Scott Kelso, Christof Koch, Hans Küng, Hakwan C. Lau, Dean Mobbs,...

One day, Matthew Eaton was walking through an impromptu animal shelter display at his local pet store when suddenly an eight-month-old kitten dug his claws into Eaton’s flesh. Eaton recognized that the “eyes of this cat and the curve of his claw” compelled a response analogous to those found in the writings of Buber, Levinas, and Derrida. And not just Eaton but a whole community of theologians have found themselves in an encounter with particular places and animals that demands rich (...) theological reflection. Eaton enlisted fellow editors Harvie and Bechtel to collect the essays in this volume, in which theologians listen to horses, rats, snakes, cats, dogs, and the earth itself, who become new theological voices demanding a response. In this volume, the voice of the more-than-human world is heard as making theology possible. These essays suggest that what we say theologically represents not simply ideas of our own making subsequently superimposed onto the natural world through our own discovery, but rather flow from an expressive Earth. With additional contributions from: Kimberly Carfore Lisa E. Dahill Celia Deane-Drummond Heather Eaton Nathan Kowalsky Abigail Lofte Jame Schaefer Cristina D. Vanin Mark Wallace Grace Y. Kao Chris Carter John Berkman Laura Hobgood. (shrink)

In 1999 Dean Zimmerman proposed a "falling elevator model" for a bodily resurrection consistent with materialism. Recently, he has defended the model against objections, and a slightly different version has been defended by Timothy O’Connor and Jonathan Jacobs. This article considers both sets of responses, and finds them at best partially successful; a new objection, not previously discussed, is also introduced. It is concluded that the prospects for the falling-elevator model, in either version, are not bright.

We discuss three varieties of affective dynamics ( affective instability, emotional inertia, and emotional differentiation). In each case, we suggest how these affective dynamics should be operationalized and measured in daily life using time-intensive methods, like ecological momentary assessment or ambulatory assessment, and recommend time-sensitive analyses that take into account not only the variability but also the temporal dependency of reports. Studies that explore how these affective dynamics are associated with psychological disorders and symptoms are reviewed, and we emphasize that (...) these affective processes are within a nexus of other components of emotion regulation. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, I defended the moral permissibility of eating meat against sentience-based arguments for moral vegetarianism. The crux of my argument was that sentience is not an intrinsically morally salient property, and that animals lack moral status because they lack a root capacity for rational agency. Accordingly, it is morally permissible to consume meat even if doing so is not strictly necessary for our nutrition. This paper responds to critiques of my argument by Bruers :705–717, 2015) and Erdös. (...) I then show that their criticisms are easily dispatched and therefore fail to undermine my defense of meat consumption. (shrink)

According to Gamper, one function of science is to determine how the world is. Science, Gamper continues, rests on a set of basic assumptions, and the gap between basic assumptions and science should be filled by ontological frameworks that accommodates the modal properties of such assumptions. Different frameworks may surely suggest different modal properties. Thus, in so far as we use different basic assumptions, we can have different ontologies with different modal properties. Ontologies affect, in turn, science, which, however, has (...) the power to falsify the ontological frameworks. The aim of this article is to show a possible trouble of Gamper's proposal, here considered as applied to the geographical debate. (shrink)

It is known that indicative and subjunctive conditionals interact differently with a rigidifying "actually" operator. The paper studies this difference in an abstract setting. It does not assume the framework of possible world semantics, characterizing "actually" instead by the type of logically valid formulas to which it gives rise. It is proved that in a language with such features all sentential contexts that are congruential (in the sense that they preserve logical equivalence) are extensional (in the sense that they preserve (...) material equivalence). For a subjunctive conditional, the natural conclusion to draw is that it is non-congruential. It is much harder to defend the claim that an indicative conditional is non-congruential. The pressure to treat the indicative conditional as truth-functional is correspondingly greater. The implications of these results for attempts to interpret the indicative conditional as an epistemic or doxastic operator are assessed. (shrink)

"Rationalism in Politics, " first published in 1962, has established the late Michael Oakeshott as the leading conservative political theorist in modern Britain. This expanded collection of essays astutely points out the limits of "reason" in rationalist politics.Oakeshott criticizes ideological schemes to reform society according to supposedly "scientific" or rationalistic principles that ignore the wealth and variety of human experience. "Rationalism in politics," says Oakeshott, "involves a misconception with regard to the nature of human knowledge." History has shown that it (...) produces unexpected, often disastrous results. "Having cut himself off from the traditional knowledge of his society, and denied the value of any education more extensive than a training in a technique of analysis," the Rationalist succeeds only in undermining the institutions that hold civilized society together. In this regard, rationalism in politics is "a corruption of the mind."Timothy Fuller is Professor of Political Science and Dean of the College at Colorado College. (shrink)

The duality of computer programs is characterized, on the one hand, by their physical implementations on physical devices, and, on the other, by the conceptual implementations in programmers’ minds of the objects making up the computational processes they conceive. We contend that central to programmers’ conceptual implementations are (i) the concept of type, at both the programming and the design level, and (ii) metaphors created to facilitate these implementations.

In this paper, I intend to demonstrate that in the Monologion Saint Anselm affirms the priority of the via negativa over the via positiva.More precisely, I shall argue that in that text Anselm defends a distinctive thesis with three components. There is, to begin with,a semantic component, according to which, all of our words for God—including those purporting to tell us what God is—fall utterlyshort of their mark. A consequence of this is that none of our speech is capable of (...) describing the reality that is God. There is, inaddition, an epistemic component according to which there is no way for us to understand what God is; we can only know what Godis not. In consequence, we have no way of directly grasping God or of comprehending God’s being. Finally there is a metaphysicalcomponent according to which what God is in himself is an infinite and ineffable mystery. A consequence of this would be that Godturns out to have nothing at all in common with his creatures. (shrink)

In “Knowing the Intuition and Knowing the Counterfactual”, Jonathan Ichikawa objects that this misrepresents the thought experiment as more accident‐prone than it really is. Ichikawa could take over exactly the formalization of the Gettier argument that the book recommends counterfactual and all. Michael Martin suggests that the idea of progress in a discipline, although applicable to mathematics and the natural sciences, fails to fit some of the humanities, such as history, so that we should not be too surprised if it (...) also fails to fit philosophy. Martin is more willing to countenance progress for individual philosophers than for the discipline as a whole. The crucial difference, Brandom argues, is that only the human can do things like reasoning from “That’s red” to “That’s colored.” Metaphysics is back in fashion, at least in the analytic tradition that dominates English‐speaking philosophy and is growing rapidly across the rest of the world too. (shrink)

This brief paper shows how an exact analogue of Einstein's original hole argument can be constructed in the loop representation of quantum gravity. The new argument is based on the embedding of spin-networks in a manifold and the action of the diffeomorphism constraint on them. The implications of this result are then discussed. I argue that the conclusions of many physicists working on loop quantum gravity---Rovelli and Smolin in particular---that the loop representation uniquely supports relationalism are unfounded.

Thucydides and Aristophanes, austere historian and ribald comic playwright, lived in an Athens that had, since Themistocles, been moving from a regime of ancestral piety towards a secular empire. Thucydides suggests an agreement between his understanding and that of the pious Nicias — over and against this move. Aristophanes too is a vigorous proponent of peace, and the conclusions of many of his plays appear to suggest or encourage a conservative disposition towards ancestral piety or the rule of ancestral, divine (...) law.While these first impressions are not entirely misleading, a careful examination of the two thinkers’works, with attention to Nicias and the question of the gods, suggests a more complicated and revealing picture. Neither thinker is in agreement with Nicias, who proves to be representative of a fundamental human delusion. Each, however, sees that delusion as inescapable for political life, and so makes his appeal to more serious readers inconspicuously. (shrink)

The marketing of unproven direct-to-consumer stem cell interventions is becoming widespread in Canada. There is little evidence supporting their use and they have been associated with a range of harms. Canada has been slower to act against clinics offering these interventions than other jurisdictions, including the United States. Here, we outline the regulatory and policy tools available in Canada to address this growing problem. Health Canada’s regulations governing cell therapies are complex, but recent statements make it clear that Health Canada (...) believes it has jurisdiction over many of the currently marketed stem cell interventions. Still, further regulatory clarity is needed from Health Canada, as are increased directed enforcement efforts on interventions that fall within their scope. The Competition Bureau, via the Competition Act, prohibits advertisers from making materially false or misleading promotional representations. The Competition Bureau could collaborate with the scientific community to analyze the claims of existing clinics in Canada, and impose sanctions upon those who breach the established standard. Professional regulators, including provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons, have considerable power over what products and services their members can offer. Every college of physicians in Canada requires, via policy and codes of ethics, that doctors maintain evidence-based practices. This requirement is incompatible with offering many unproven stem cell interventions. Litigation may be another tool, including the use of fraud, misrepresentation and/or negligence claims for failing to meet the required standard of care. Finally, political pressure on federal and provincial lawmakers could encourage changes to marketing, cell therapy and professional regulations that would allow a more comprehensive response. In sum, there are many existing tools that can be used to protect the public from unproven stem cell interventions. Increased bureaucratic will and grassroots efforts are needed in order to effect a positive policy response. (shrink)

The article reviews two books by Bernard Williams including "Philosophy As a Humanistic Discipline" and "The Sense of the Past.".