The objective with this study is highlight the thesis of organic and dynamic continuity of the intellectual production of Jean-Paul Sartre from the conception of history and the ethical implications that flow from it. This work will look on the fictional production of philosopher, particularly his novels, for the purpose of evidencing such thesis.

This volume provides an analysis of ethical principles based upon determinism - a perspective that Schleiermacher defines and elaborates upon in his work, On Freedom. This early treatise (1790-92) is a seminal work for Schleiermacher's career and a significant contribution to the study of ethics. The introductory essay traces the history of the text, discusses the philosophical background, and surveys his associated writings. It also provides a comprehensive summary of the treatise's arguments and comments on related (...) secondary literature. (shrink)

This book reveals Marxâe(tm)s moral philosophy and analyzes its nature. The author shows that there is an underlying system of ethics which runs the length and breadth of Marxâe(tm)s thought. The book begins by discussing the methodological side of Marxâe(tm)s ethics showing how Marxâe(tm)s criticism of conventional morality and his views on historical materialism, determinism and ideology are compatible with having an ideological system of his own. In the light of contemporary social, moral and political philosophy the (...) insights and defects of Marxâe(tm)s major ethical themes are discussed. (shrink)

In Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy, Professor Bobzien accomplishes what she describes as her “primary goal”; namely, “to establish-as far as that is possible—what the Stoic positions were, and to make them comprehensible to modern readers”. To this end, she demonstrates a scholarly command of the ancient texts and the contemporary secondary literature that places her as one of the most knowledgeable philosophers working in the history of ancient philosophy today. Moreover, as Myles Burnyeat says (...) in his remarks on the jacket, not only is the book “a model of scholarly method,” it is “an outstanding example of lucid philosophical thinking in an area where clear thought is extremely difficult.” Bobzien herself says that the “book is written with those in mind who have an interest in philosophy” and that “[t]his means that historical and philological questions are treated strictly as subordinate to the question of what the respective philosophical position was, whether it was consistent, etc.” This strict subordination is not always so clear, and the philosophical problems are certainly interesting enough that a deeper and more extensive discussion would have been welcome, but Bobzien does provide a philosophically lucid treatment of the Stoic position on determinism, freedom, and related subjects. Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy is likely to be a dominate work in the field for quite some time. (shrink)

The purpose of the present work is twofold. On the one hand, it attempts to provide a critical exposition of the ethical theory of Jean-Paul Sartre. On the other hand, it strives to explain, and in a limited way to defend, the central thesis of that theory, namely, that freedom is the "highest," or most important, value. ;The study begins with an extensive discussion of Sartre's theory of freedom. Sartre's arguments for the freedom of consciousness are identified (...) and presented, and a number of widespread misunderstandings of Sartre's conception of the nature of freedom are corrected. Specifically, it is argued that, contrary to prevailing opinion, Sartre distinguishes between different senses of freedom, insists that freedom is always limited, and remains substantially consistent, throughout his intellectual career, in his understanding of the nature of freedom. ;The study next takes up Sartre's theory of values. Here the well-known strain of ethical subjectivism in Sartre's thought is presented and criticized, with the main instrument of criticism being a distinction, overlooked by Sartre, between subjectivism as a meta-ethical theory about the status of moral judgments, and subjectivism as an ontological doctrine regarding the existence of moral values. ;The study concludes with an explanation and defense of the theory that freedom is the highest value. Here the presentation of Sartre's ethical theory is brought to completion through a discussion of its neglected objectivist elements, and through a development in regard to ethics of Sartre's general theory of knowledge. It is then shown that the notion of freedom as a value underlies both the subjectivist and the objectivist phases of Sartre's ethical thought, and it is suggested that these two phases can be reconciled in a conception of ethics as a dialectic of invention and discovery. This conception is defended by way of a brief discussion of its advantages over rival ethical theories, which neglect one or the other of the stages of this dialectic. (shrink)

Commentators are divided between those who welcome and creatively extend the agenda of Lifelines and those who defend what it criticises. My response covers style; history, politics, and ethics; concepts of freedom, active organisms, and determinism; the uses of metaphor; reductionism and levels of analysis; Darwin and Darwinists; heritability and intelligence; human universals and biological determinism.

This clear reference to unlimited freedom in values despite limited freedom in causality pictures quite accurately the theme of this article. Lord Russell made the statement in the closing eloquent paragraph of a 1927 volume he wrote to outline the problems of philosophy. He evidently feels that, prescinding from determinism or non-determinism in the causal sphere, freedom can still be meaningfully discussed in the ethical sphere, the realm of human values, though obviously in a special (...) sense of the word ‘freedom’. In other words, regardless of man’s psychological freedom or nonfreedom, Russell asserts that in the moral order man has perfect ‘freedom’ to decide for himself what shall be good or evil, right or wrong. (shrink)

Introduction: A Not So Secular Age? -- An Idealist Theory of History -- Kant's Anti-Determinism -- Freedom without Arbitrariness -- Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Kant -- From Heaven to History -- Autonomy and Alienation -- Philosophy in History -- After Immortality.

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s (...) view)? Pfister ob- serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

What do we mean when we talk about epigenetic harm? This paper presents a multidimensional view of epigenetic harm. It is a plea to take a step back from discussions of epigenetic responsibility distributions prevalent in ELSA literature on epigenetics. Instead, it urges researchers to take a closer look at the normative role played by the concept of epigenetic harm. It starts out by showing that the ways in which the object of epigenetic responsibility has already been conceptualized are (...) all related to ‘epigenetic harm’: something negative that happens in which epigenetic mechanisms play a role, or rather something that needs to be avoided. Epigenetic harm is then characterized as a bridging concept between relatively neutral findings on epigenetics on the one side, and potential ethical and societal implications of those findings, primarily in terms of responsibility ascriptions and distributions, on the other. The paper proposes that a sufficiently nuanced account of epigenetic harm should include at least three dimensions. The dimension of causation alone leads to an overly narrow understanding of harm, and a wrong understanding of this dimension might prompt researchers to support an excessively simplistic epigenetic determinism. It is argued that a multidimensional analysis of epigenetic harm is less vulnerable to this threat and more reflective of the various kinds of harm that may be experienced by the subjects of epigenetic alterations. The paper applies insights from disability studies and feminist philosophy to draw attention to two other dimensions of epigenetic harm, namely lived experiences and relationality. The paper concludes by exploring what a shift towards a multidimensional approach to epigenetic harm might mean for epigenetic research and responsibility ascriptions by formulating some concrete implications. (shrink)

In this module, I first explore the dialectic that leads to Kant’s substantive moral theory. In the second section, I explicate the roots of Kant’s ethical theory in terms of his attempt to resolve the antinomy of freedom and determinism. Kant’s solution is a Normative Compatibilism that resolves the inconsistency via morality, in general, and self-governance in particular. As noted in our lesson on Yoga, this is a strategy that Yoga endorses, and hence, predates the Kantian approach by (...) over a millennia and a half. Yet, Kant’s approach to Normative Compatibilism is unique to him, and perhaps, more influential. In the third section, I review Kant’s dialectic by which he concludes that The Categorical Imperative is the means by which rational agents resolve this tension by freely determining themselves. In the fourth section, I consider some preliminary objections to Kant’s theory. In the fifth section, I draw some conclusions. (shrink)

Most readers of Spinoza treat him as a pure metaphysician, a grim determinist, or a stoic moralist, but none of these descriptions captures the author of the _Ethics, _argues Steven B. Smith in this intriguing book. Offering a new reading of Spinoza’s masterpiece, Smith asserts that the Ethics is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities and should be placed among the great founding documents of the Enlightenment. Two aspects of Smith’s book distinguish it (...) from other studies. It treats the famous “geometrical method” of the _Ethics _as_ _a form of moral rhetoric, a model for the construction of individuality. And it presents the _Ethics _as_ _a companion to Spinoza’s major work of political philosophy, the _Theologico-Political Treatise, _each work helping to explore the problem of freedom. Affirming Spinoza’s centrality for both critics and defenders of modernity, the book will be of value to students of political theory, philosophy, and intellectual history. (shrink)

A major event in the history of twentieth-century thought, Notebooks for a Ethics is Jean-Paul Sartre's attempt to develop an ethics consistent with the profound individualism of his existential philosophy. In the famous conclusion to Being and Nothingness , Sartre announced that he would devote his next philosophical work to moral problems. Although he worked on this project in the late 1940s, Sartre never completed it to his satisfaction, and it remained unpublished until after his death in (...) 1980. Presented here for the first time in English, the Notebooks reveal Sartre at his most productive, crafting a masterpiece of philosophical reflection that can easily stand alongside his other great works. Sartre grapples anew here with such central issues as "authenticity" and the relation of alienation and freedom to moral values. Exploring fundamental modes of relating to the Other--among them violence, entreaty, demand, appeal, refusal, and revolt--he articulates the necessary transition from individualism to historical consciousness. This work thus forms an important bridge between the early existentialist Sartre and the later Marxist social thinker of the Critique of Dialectical Reason . The Notebooks themselves are complemented here by two additional essays, one on "the good and subjectivity," the other on the oppression of blacks in the United States. With publication of David Pellauer's lucid translation, English-speaking readers will be able to appreciate this important contribution to moral philosophy and the history of ethics. Jean-Paul Sartre (1906-1980) was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, The Family Idiot , and The Freud Scenario , both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

The Mahabharata, one of the major epics of India, is a sourcebook complete by itself as well as an open text constantly under construction. This volume looks at transactions between its modern discourses and ancient vocabulary. Located amid conversations between these two conceptual worlds, the volume grapples with the epic's problematisation of dharma or righteousness, and consequently, of the ideal person and the good life through a cluster of issues surrounding the concept of agency and action. Drawing on several interdisciplinary (...) approaches, the essays reflect on a range of issues in the Mahabharata, including those of duty, motivation, freedom, selfhood, choice, autonomy, and justice, both in the context of philosophical debates and their ethical and political ramifications for contemporary times. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers engaged with philosophy, literature, religion, history, politics, culture, gender, South Asian studies, and Indology. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in South Asian epics and the Mahabharata. (shrink)

Two famous Russian thinkers Nikolai O. Lossky (1870–1965) and E. Vasilievich Spektorsky (1875–1951) had a lot in common: both were talented intellectuals, lecturers and authors of many works on philosophy, history of philosophy, culture, politics and literature; both had to leave Russia and settle down abroad, and continue academic and creative activities in foreign environments. All these factors contributed to their friendly and intellectual communication which we want to pay attention to in this article. The purpose of the (...) article is to demonstrate similarities in how Lossky and Spektorsky formulated and addressed ethical issues on the grounding of Christianity and Christian-based philosophy. Thus, we have chosen several aspects of their ethical systems which are crucial for understanding the way of their moral thinking and which are representative in terms of comparison of these two authors: general philosophical positions, grounding ethics in Christianity, absolute basis of ethics and the way it can be cognized, human freedom, motives and goals of moral behavior, and moral evolution and the perspectives of humanity. (shrink)

The article compares the ethical concepts of Christian Wolff and Immanuel Kant and identifies not only coincidences, but also, mainly, their fundamental differences. On the one hand, Wolff denies the possibility of attributing good or evil to an action depending on the will of God. On the other hand, the Creator is the one who actualizes the existing relationship between things, and therefore moral assessment is still inseparable from him. For Kant, the divine will is completely excluded as a source (...) of moral law, but at the same time it is a natural result of the consistent fulfillment of the moral dictates of reason. The concept of freedom is equally important for both thinkers. Wolff insists on its necessity, but hardly justifies its possibility, since he attributes any immoral action not to freedom of choice, but to a lack of knowledge. The philosopher does not assume a mismatch of will and reason. In addition, the thinker assumes a universal determinism of nature, the latter expresses itself in a natural law, which also coincides with the divine law. The basic principle of Wolfian ethics is perfection, which is not strictly defined and which Kant himself considers unclear. Thus, the moral character of an action, according to Wolff, depends not only on these laws, but also on the principle of perfection. At the same time, for Kant, the morality of an action depends on compliance with the moral law, and first of all, the intention preceding the action or inaction is evaluated. In Wolff'’s case, the consequence arising from the act is subject to evaluation, which is the opposite of Kant’s ideas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and CharacterIvan A. BoldyrevMark D. White. Kantian Ethics and Economics: Autonomy, Dignity, and Character. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. Pp. xi + 270. Cloth, $55.00.This remarkable book provides a new ethical perspective for economics based on Kantian ethics of autonomy and dignity. There are two main messages in it that I find particularly important. First, Mark White derives (...) from Kant the idea of irreducible moral principles that govern the behavior of economic agents independently of welfarist and, more generally, consequentialist concerns. These principles of duty and the “incomparable worth” (21) of human dignity, as well as justice or rights, may not be economically traded off against some other motivations; hence, they simply evade economic reasoning altogether.Second, White endorses a version of libertarian Kantianism that treats people as individuals in essence (“autonomous”) and social in orientation (respecting the rights and the choices of the others). In discussing individualism, White attacks the conventional wisdom of economics and claims that preferences alone do not account for the identity of individuals [End Page 298] in space and time, although their unique characters do. Persons should be given free choice (absent in deterministic rational-choice models) and hence responsibility for their choices that incorporates the social factors in decision-making. However, White never mentions the almost insurmountable difficulties associated with fleshing out the truly individual features of a given person. Although he allows for a person’s identity and character changing over time, he does not recognize that character itself is in many respects a social construction.White criticizes paternalistic economic policies that suggest manipulating choice environments in order to follow the “true” preferences of the individuals. Instead, real consent, as satisfying both relevant preferences and principles (e.g. rights and human dignity), is, in his view, the sole criterion for justifying particular policy measures—not Pareto-efficiency or Kaldor-Hicks compensation. Economists’ obsession with efficiency leading to the misconceived notions such as “efficient level of crime” or “manageable level of terrorism” is also severely criticized.For White, the most popular formalistic version of the categorical imperative is less important than the other two—prohibiting treating other people simply as means and instituting the “Kingdom of Ends.” Formalism is reserved merely for the negative evaluation of actions and providing strict perfect duties that give clear guidance concerning what should not be done. White’s “Kantian-economic” model of decision-making incorporates perfect duties as constraints, and imperfect (positive) duties as preferences. He also stresses that for Kant, duties derived from the imperative depend on empirical knowledge, the context of decision-making, and judgment as a unique personal interpretation of the moral law. He further emphasizes the intersubjective role of Kantian morality: moral law should be universalizable to all rational persons (the “Kingdom of Ends” formula of the imperative), whereas rationality means not just following the patterns of behavior developed in the preference-oriented choice model, but rather acting on one’s beliefs and desires or choosing not to follow them, thus exhibiting genuine autonomy.The new and important contribution to the discussion is an explicit treatment of will as an inner faculty that, together with judgment, constitutes a person’s character or “self,” and helps to overcome the mere inclination to follow duty. Will is the missing link between decision and action and should be “well-trained” for bringing about true morality.The book is clearly written, and the author has upheld the interdisciplinary appeal of the topic, demonstrating an outstanding knowledge of the vast literature on ethics (both Kantian and not) and economics. White’s emphasis on the irreducibility of moral principles is absolutely relevant for current economic and political debates. However, some reservations are in order.There is an ambiguity concerning the status of his analysis. If in its positive aspect White’s recommendations for economists is to accept the Kantian vision of morality, then almost no arguments are given for this, and his modifications of the standard choice model are introduced in an ad hoc manner, just to reconcile it with the Kantian framework. Are an individual’s decisions to act on principles and to overcome mere inclinations really... (shrink)

Michelle Kosch examines the conceptions of free will and the foundations of ethics in the work of Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard. She seeks to understand the history of German idealism better by looking at it through the lens of these issues, and to understand Kierkegaard better by placing his thought in this context. Kosch argues for a new interpretation of Kierkegaard's theory of agency, that Schelling was a major influence and Kant a major target of criticism, and that (...) both the theory and the criticisms are highly relevant to contemporary debates. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger DeltaMelissa BrowningEthics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger Delta Nimi Wariboko Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. 193 pp. $60.00In Ethics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion of the Niger Delta, Nimi Wariboko offers a new definition of temporal orientation, arguing that (...) this new understanding of time can help us rethink social ethics, particularly economic ethics. He begins by citing literature showing that temporal orientation has always been used to speak about how a sociocultural group sees itself in light of a “time or origin” (such as a sacred past) or “time preference” (such as a preference for past, present, or future). Wariboko proposes a third way, redefining temporal orientation as a break or clearing in time between the past and the future—a kairos event. He goes on to say that understanding how members of a sociocultural group understand time is essential to understanding how they see themselves and their moral sources.Wariboko speaks of temporal orientation in terms of “time gaps,” contending that freedom and new beginnings are found within these gaps. Suggesting that these gaps are important to the process of defining subjectivity—since human beings live in a time-defined gap between birth and death—he coins the term “chronomethics” to refer to a new methodology where ethics is studied [End Page 213] through the lens of temporal orientation with attention to the analysis of cultural forms.Wariboko provides an exemplar of this methodology by doing an in-depth analysis of the Kalabari community of the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria. Through the use of ethnography, Wariboko explores politics, religious imagination, apocalypticism, and the philosophy of history in Kalabari beliefs and practices—setting African studies in dialogue with Western philosophy and theology. Here, and throughout the book, he draws heavily on the work of Hannah Arendt in his analysis.Although this ethnographic analysis makes an important contribution to ethical reflection, it is not without problems. Wariboko focuses almost exclusively on the chiefs of the Kalabari community, using both male language and male concepts. When Wariboko moves to a discussion of traditional Kalabari religion, he speaks mainly of the male or neuter aspect of God (which is called So, or so) and only briefly mentions the female aspect (Teme-órú). This leaves the reader to wonder whether the actors and agents Wariboko refers to include women. In sum, his descriptive analysis of Kalabari culture lacks a critique of patriarchy, which should be present in any analysis that seeks to make a contribution to Christian ethics.Perhaps the most significant contribution of the book is found in its chapter on imagination. Here Wariboko examines the ways in which the Kalabari people imagine their own society and construct a moral imagination. He pays significant attention to African conceptions of community and the ways in which individuals relate to their communities. Although Wariboko contributes an important original voice to this dialogue, this voice could be strengthened by incorporating the voices of other African philosophers and theologians rather than relying primarily on Western sources in his analysis of Kalabari culture.The book concludes by relating the newly proposed methodology (and to some extent the ethnography) to concrete applications within the realm of economic development. Here Wariboko focuses on the “kairos-ordering of society,” arguing that economic development will only be attained when the state maintains the rules of just conduct, nurtures kairos, develops human capabilities, embraces pluralism, and uses social practices to disperse knowledge. Although this final section is brief, it invites further reflection by delineating how temporal orientation could be used as a new methodology for Christian ethics. [End Page 214]Melissa BrowningLexington Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2012 The Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the ethical justifiability of the limitation of freedom of movement, in particular of the ban on running outdoors, enforced in Italy as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the spring of 2020. I argue that through the lens of public health ethics literature, the ban on running falls short of the criterion of proportionality that public health ethics scholars and international guidelines for the ethical management of infectious disease outbreak recommend (...) for any measure that restricts essential individual freedoms, such as the freedom of movement. The public health ethics framework, however, falls short of explaining the widespread public support that the running ban has had in Italy. I discuss possible factors which could explain the public support for the ban in Italy. Finally, I raise the question of what societal implications the abandonment of the public health ethics framework based on proportionality might have. I conclude that if it is the case, as the history of pandemics teaches us, we will experience further waves of COVID-19 outbreaks, it becomes very important to raise these questions now, with an eye towards informing public health policies for the management of future COVID-19 outbreaks. This discussion should not become politicized along the lines of liberal pro-lockdown/conservative anti-lockdown. Instead, we should reflect on the trade-offs of lockdown policies according to a pluralist framework, in which COVID-19 related deaths are not the only possible value to pursue. (shrink)

This book features new perspectives on the ethics and politics of free speech. Contributors draw on insights from philosophy, psychology, political theory, journalism, literature, and history to respond to pressing problems involving free speech in liberal societies. Recent years have seen an explosion of academic interest in free speech. However, most recent work has focused on constitutional protections for free speech and on issues related to academic freedom and campus politics. The chapters in this volume set (...) their sights more broadly on the non-state problems that we collectively face in attempting to realize a healthy environment for free discourse. The volume's contributors share the assumption that threats to free speech do not come exclusively from state sources or bad actors, but from ordinary strategic situations in which all may be acting in good faith. Contributors take seriously the idea that our current cultural moment provides plenty of reason to be concerned about our intellectual climate and offer new insights for how to make things better. New Directions in the Ethics and Politics of Speech will be of interest to researchers and students working in ethics, political philosophy, social theory, and law. (shrink)

Philosophy -- Ethics beyond existentialism and structuralism: Sartre's critique of dialectical reason and the debate with Levi-Strauss -- Foucault's ethics of the self -- Derrida in Heidelberg: the specter of Heidegger's Nazism and the question of ethics -- Richard Rorty's cultural politics: ironist philosophy and the ethics of reading -- History -- From metahistory to the practical past: Hayden White's existentialist philosophy of history -- Hayden White and the ethics of historiography literature (...) -- The ethics of conversion: metaphysical desire in Ren, Girard, and Jean-Paul Sartre -- The ethics of realism: literary history and the sublime in Erich Auerbach's mimesis -- The ethics of philology: Erich Auerbach and the fate of humanism -- Edward Said, orientalism, and the political turn in literary and cultural studies. (shrink)

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash INTRODUCTION Religion has long provided guidance that has led to standards reflected in some aspects of medical practices and traditions. The recent bioethical literature addresses numerous new problems posed by advancing medical technology and demonstrates an erosion of standards rooted in religion and long widely accepted as almost axiomatic. In the deep soul-searching that pervades the publications on bioethics, several disturbing and dangerous trends neglect some basic lessons of philosophy, logic, and history. (...) The bioethics discourse on medical aid in dying emphasizes similarity over previously recognized important distinguishing features. For example, it overplays a likeness between assistance in dying and the withdrawal of life-saving technology. In many bioethics’ topics, arguments based on a logical continuum are used to question the lines demarcating important moral differences. l. The Line Between Ethical and Not: Logic Based on Continuum Careful case selection, often either end of a continuum, allows the tearing down or ridiculing of many rules and codes across most professions and fields of interest. This situation holds true for traffic laws as well as medical ethics guidelines. It is relatively simple for those who desire to attack a particular viewpoint by selecting a case that makes that position seem untenable. In the ethics realm, good and bad medicine exist at opposite ends of an ethical continuum, with many practices lying in between. For example, much of medical ethics exists between the Nazi criminal physicians and the most sainted nurse or physician. A gradual progression occurred over less than two decades from a utilitarian position that supported limited euthanasia for those with certain mental illnesses to genocide. German society embraced a utilitarian ethic in which the value of human life no longer was intrinsic but instrumental.[1] Many morally significant points on a continuum were then ignored as the misguided utilitarian policy rampantly continued. A point in the continuum to distinguish between ethically justifiable and that which is not can be difficult to identify compared to the two extremes. This continuum is not unique to ethics but can be applied to almost any other aspect of human life and endeavor. Between a severely ill schizophrenic person and a superbly well-adjusted individual, there is a continuum of mental and psychological function. The existence of a continuum should not paralyze thinking and prevent us from drawing lines and identifying moral differences based on objective criteria as well as moral philosophy. Yet, by focusing on a continuum, many bioethicists use logic to disregard dividing lines between an "ethical" and an "unethical" act. Unfortunately, sometimes bioethicists draw revolutionary conclusions that would change the scope of medical practices which is accepted as ethical. There are many examples of similar shifts on the continuum. Many authors argue for the ethical permissibility of abortion by pointing out that the human fetus is no different in various characteristics, one arguing it is as like an ape or chick as it is like a person,[2] and does not achieve unique human and individual characteristics until well into the first year of life.[3] While human fetuses arguably do not have certain distinctive qualities of personhood, most people shy away from the logical next conclusion: permitting infanticide. For example, Joshua Lederberg condemns infanticide, in the face of biological illogic, because of our emotional commitment to infants, to me, a relatively weak explanation. Sir Francis Crick suggests we might consider birth at two days of life in order to decide whether an infant is a "suitable" member of society.[4] Giublini and Minerva suggest that infanticide should be permissible since late pregnancy abortions are permissible, arguing there is no significant difference between a fetus just before birth and an infant just after birth.[5] Clearly the continuum approach would allow for subjective arguments in favor of later infanticide at other points many days post-birth. Years ago, with a cynical tone, I mentioned infanticide as a further step on the continuum beyond abortion, and I was rightly shouted down as being deliberately provocative to assert the logic would ever stretch so far. While it is not an accepted mainstream position, the movement in academic settings from widespread condemnation to limited possible acceptance of infanticide has taken place in an incredibly short time. Public opinion and medical opinion in these areas have shifted dramatically in a short time. In another area, from a biological and chemical point of view, there is a continuum from man down to a single carbon atom. Yet, it would not seem logical to ignore the emotional differences, the meaning of personhood, or the moral distinction between killing an insect and killing a person. ll. A False Continuum: Medical Aid in Dying I assert that there has been an erosion of ethical guidelines in recent years attributable to using continuums to camouflage important distinctions. James Rachels’ work on active and passive euthanasia, which contends that the two are ethically identical, exemplifies that logic.[6] He illustrates this thesis, using a continuum to compare different scenarios with like consequences as morally equivalent, by comparing the deliberate drowning of a child with a deliberate failure to rescue a drowning child when easily able to do so. The author's comparison proposes that since much of the medical profession has already made peace with withholding treatment in order to hasten death, consistency inexorably demands that we permit active euthanasia as well.[7] When permission for active euthanasia was first introduced, it was limited exclusively to patients suffering severely from an intractable, incurable, and irreversible disease. These guidelines have been continuously eroded. There is now a substantial serious consideration for permitting active euthanasia of healthy elderly individuals who feel that they have completed their lives and are "tired of living."[8] There are many moral and factual differences along the ethical continuum. In human life, there is a difference between a live baby and a fetus, between a viable fetus and one that is not, between a fetus and a zygote, and between a zygote and a sperm cell. Similarly, there is a difference between pulling a trigger to kill someone and not interfering in preventing his death, which is reprehensible though both may be. There is a difference between not resuscitating an 80-year-old man with cancer when his heart stops and injecting him with a fatal dose of potassium chloride. I argue that an overt act of taking life repels civilized human beings is to be commended and encouraged as the reverence for human life or even for just a moment of human life is one of the great contributions of our civilization. CONCLUSION As an orthodox Jew, I feel that divinely inspired guidelines that have stood the test of centuries shape my beliefs, and such guidelines contradict medical aid in dying. I cannot speak to the viewpoint of those who do not access religion in defining their moral stance, nor do I implicate them in the current bioethics' trends, as I am not aware of the personal role of religion in the lives of most such authors. While many nonreligious people have a firm philosophical grounding and oppose medical aid in dying, I suggest that in the absence of any religious or other absolute standards, developing logically defensible ethical guidelines may be challenging. At the least, religion may play a role in defining the points on the continuums that are ethically meaningful and refuting the trending beliefs that if the endpoint is the same, allowing different methods of arriving at that end are somehow ethically equal. The continuum of ways death may result does not negate analysis of whether death is brought about in ways that recognize the importance of life. The German philosopher Hans Jonas said, "It is a question whether without restoring the category of the sacred, the category most thoroughly destroyed by the scientific enlightenment, we can have an ethics able to cope with the extreme powers that we possess today and constantly increase and are compelled to use."[9] While countries vary on the role of religion in policy, with many emphasizing freedoms of religion, a recent position paper released by a group of Jewish, Christian, and Moslem leaders suggested the need for agreement on the unique sanctity of human life.[10] I would recommend that such a document serve as an example of consensus on critical foundational bioethical guidelines for democratic secular societies. - [1] Alexander L Medical science under dictatorship. New England Journal of Medicine, 241, p39-47 DOI10.1056/NEJM194907142410201 [2] Lederberg J. A geneticist looks at contraception and abortion, Annals of Internal Medicine 67, sup 2, 25-27. https:/doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-67-3-25 [3] Ibid. [4] Editorial, Sociology: Logic of biology. Nature 220, 429 https://www.nature.com/articles/220429b0 [5] Giublini A Minerva F After-birth abortion: why should the baby live. J Med Ethics 39, 261- [6] Rachels J Active and passive euthanasia. New England Journal of Medicine 292, 78-80 [7] Ibid. [8] Cohen-Almagor R Euthanizing people who are "tired of life". in Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide-Lessons from Belgium. Ch 11 of Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, Cambridge University Press pp173-187. 2017 and DOI; https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108182799.012 [9] Hans Jonas, Technology and Responsibility: Reflections on the New Tasks of Ethics, 1972, found as Chapter IX, Philosophical Essays, 1980. https://inters.org/jonas-technology-responsability [10] A position paper of the Abrahamic Monotheistic religions on matters concerning the end-of-life. Vatican Press 28 October 2019 https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2019/10/28/191028f.html. (shrink)

In this well-researched, comprehensive study of J.S. Mill, Professor Habibi argues that the persistent, dominant theme of Mill's life and work was his passionate belief in human improvement and progress. Several Mill scholars recognize this; however, numerous writers overlook his 'growth ethic', and this has led to misunderstandings about his value system. This study defines and establishes the importance of Mill's growth ethic and clears up misinterpretations surrounding his notions of higher and lower pleasures, positive and negative freedom, the (...) status of children, the legitimacy of authority, and support for British colonialism. Drawing from the entire corpus of Mill's writings, as well as the extensive secondary literature, Habibi has written the most focused, sustained analysis of Mill's grand, leading principle. This book will be useful to college students in philosophy and intellectual history as well as specialists in these fields. (shrink)

The term freedom appears in many contexts in Kant's work, ranging from the cosmological to the moral to the theological. Can the diverse meanings Kant gave to the term be ordered systematically? To ask that question is to test the consistency and coherence of Kant's thought in its entirety. Widely praised when first published in France, The Coherence of Kant's Doctrine of Freedom articulates and interrelates the disparate senses of freedom in Kant's work. Bernard Carnois organizes all (...) Kant's usages into a logical "grammar," isolating and defining the individual meanings and pointing out their implications and limits. In a first step, he shows how Kant's notion of intelligible character makes possible a synthesis of transcendental freedom, as a problematic concept of theoretical reason, and practical freedom, as a fact demonstrated by experience. He then develops the concept of freedom under the rubric of the will's autonomy in the context of the moral law. And finally, Carnois persistently explores the role of negativity in Kant's idea of freedom. For within the magisterial coherence of the system the imperfection of human finitude is inscribed. This introduces the "history" of our freedom--a freedom which posits itself, but then inevitably denies itself, even while preserving the possibility of its regeneration. The only work in English to consider in detail all of Kant's writings on freedom, this book also introduces French Kant scholars whose works have often been unavailable to English-speaking readers. As both an interpretation of Kant and a trenchant analysis of the relationship between ethical commitments and metaphysical assumptions, it will be a useful addition to moral, religious, and political philosophy as well as to Kant scholarship. (shrink)

I’ve been told that in the good old days of the 1970s, when Quine’s desert landscapes were regarded as ideal real estate and David Lewis and John Rawls had not yet left a legion of influential students rewriting the terrain of metaphysics and ethics respectively, compatibilism was still compatibilism about free will. And, of course, incompatibilism was still incompatibilism about free will. That is, compatibilism was the view that free will was compatible with determinism. Incompatibilism was the view (...) that free will was incompatible with determinism.1 What philosophers argued about was whether free will was compatible with determinism. Mostly, this was an argument about how to understand claims that one could do otherwise. You needn’t have bothered to talk about moral responsibility, because it was just obvious that you couldn’t have moral responsibility without free will. The literature was a temple of clarity. Then, somehow, things began to go horribly wrong. To be sure, there had been some activity in the 1960s that would have struck some observers as ominous. Still, it was not until the 1980s that those initial warning signs gave way to real trouble. The meanings of terms twisted. (shrink)

A major event in the history of twentieth-century thought, _Notebooks for a Ethics_ is Jean-Paul Sartre's attempt to develop an ethics consistent with the profound individualism of his existential philosophy. In the famous conclusion to _Being and Nothingness_, Sartre announced that he would devote his next philosophical work to moral problems. Although he worked on this project in the late 1940s, Sartre never completed it to his satisfaction, and it remained unpublished until after his death in 1980. Presented (...) here for the first time in English, the _Notebooks_ reveal Sartre at his most productive, crafting a masterpiece of philosophical reflection that can easily stand alongside his other great works. Sartre grapples anew here with such central issues as "authenticity" and the relation of alienation and freedom to moral values. Exploring fundamental modes of relating to the Other—among them violence, entreaty, demand, appeal, refusal, and revolt—he articulates the necessary transition from individualism to historical consciousness. This work thus forms an important bridge between the early existentialist Sartre and the later Marxist social thinker of the _Critique of Dialectical Reason_. The _Notebooks_ themselves are complemented here by two additional essays, one on "the good and subjectivity," the other on the oppression of blacks in the United States. With publication of David Pellauer's lucid translation, English-speaking readers will be able to appreciate this important contribution to moral philosophy and the history of ethics. Jean-Paul Sartre was offered, but declined, the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964. His many works of fiction, drama, and philosophy include the monumental study of Flaubert, _The Family Idiot_, and _The Freud Scenario_, both published in translation by the University of Chicago Press. (shrink)

This work is conceived as a modem study of the relationships of the concept of human freedom with the moral concepts of responsibility and obligation and other closely allied notions. One pitfall into which writers on my sub jects have occasionally fallen has been that of spending too much time in critically examining positions and arguments which no sane philosopher has ever offered. In order to guard against the danger of debating with "straw men," I have attempted to engage (...) in critical conversations with several twentieth century writers on my theme. I have attempted to pay special at tention to a handful of writers who have written extremely important and influential discussions and who are representatives of a diversity of per spectives on the issues involved. In particular, I have taken note of the work of two determinists, Sir David Ross and Hastings Rashdall, a libertarian, C. A. Campbell, and a reprel>entative of the more recent linguistic-analytic approach, P. Nowell-Smith. Many other important writers have been brought in at crucial points in the conversation. But this is not a history of the problem in the 20th century. Rather, it is a critical, systematic study of a problem or set of related problems. This work may be divided roughly into two parts, a metaphysical-psycho logical part comprising the first three chapters, and a metaethical-ethical part consisting of the last three chapters. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 133 of its time and nothing beyond that, while in classical historicism every philosophy was a step in the progressive manifestation of truth not only a historical phenomenon. As a result it iustified not only a historicist treatment but also a speculative discussion of its truth-content. These genuine philosophies may be nonetheless rooted in their own time as we all are, but in philosophy as in life (...) everybody is confronted with a decision whether he wants to be merely a part of history or whether he wants to have history, i.e. also to have the link with true being. Pareyson's theory of interpretation is specially tailored to the reconciliation of the multiplicity of philosophies and of the unity of philosophical thought, aiming at ontological truth. All philosophies are personal interpretations of the world, yet they have an indestructible content of ontological truth that surpasses their own time. We shall not err if we compare Pareyson's interpretation with what Joseph Scbelling called "intelektuelle Anschauung," i.e. the intuitive penetration of what he called the Absolute. Pareyson protests also against the claims of the humanistic sciences, such as sociology, anthropology and cultural history, to replace philosophy. All these sciences canhot replace the function of philosophy as described above. Pareyson uses a very illuminating metaphor: interpreting truth is like interpreting a musical score. While any such interpretation may be legitimate, all may be different and all are personal. But the musical score is always the same. The musical score is compared here with the ontological truth of philosophical thought, while the various readings of the score are the various historical philosophies. By so doing Pareyson avoids the error of Heidegger who rejected all historical philosophies from Parmenides to Nietzsche. MAx RINSER New York Ctty Moser, Shia. Absolutism and Relativism in Ethics. (Springfield, Ill., Thomas, 1968) In the last twenty years our ethics textbooks have been modeled upon the topics of normative and critical ethics. Eventually one finds appended to these main subjects discussions on moral determinism and relativism. While the former problem continues to foster much rigorous scholarship, both substantive and analytic, the germane issue of relativism has been seldom set forth today in a clear and convincing fashion. The fleeting recognition the problem receives in our textbooks renders homage to the curiosity of the student rather than encourages research in the origin, variability and validity of moral ideas,x The several articles 2 of any philosophical impact written after A. Edel essayed refutation of Westermarck's relativity thesis by appealing to invariant factors in the social sciences, fare no better. Although it is true that this recent literature has opened An exception is Maria Ossowska's, Social Determinants of Moral Ideas (Philadelphia, 1970); this book belongs to the tradition of A. Edel and is an excellent example of fruitful research in the sociology of morals. 2 C. Wellman, "The Ethical Implications of Cultural Relativity," Journal of Philosophy 60 (1963): 169-184; J. Ladd, "The Issue of Relativism," The Monist 47 (1963): 585-609; T. L. McClintoek, "The Argument for Ethical Relativism from the Diversity of Morals," The Monist 47 (1963): 528-544; G. B. Wall, "Primitive Cultures and Ethical Universals," International Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1967): 471-482; V. A. Howard, "Do Anthropologists Become Moral Relativists by Mistake?" Inquiry 11 (1968): 175-189. 134 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY new avenues of conceptual investigation, the diversity of definitions offered and propounded theses make it difficult to ascertain precisely where these new avenues are planned to lead. It seems to me that if one construes relativism in terms of one component of J. Ladd's thesis,3 i.e., moral ideas are causally dependent on socio-cultural determinants of some kind, there is substantially no difference between the alleged moral implications of relativism and those of determinism. Indeed relativism so interpreted becomes entangled in one of the problems peculiar to determinism, which is the difficulty of ascribing responsibility to societies and individuals. Thus the determinist's avowed impotence to blame and praise coincides with the relafivist's virtue of tolerance.4 By the same token one could exploit the determinist's model and speak of hard relativism, soft relativism and... (shrink)

Stoic philosophers had to face the accusation of incoherence, self-contradiction and Paradoxes since ancient times. Plutarch in his Moralia writes against them; Cicero devotes a separate work on stoic paradoxes. Even in contemporary Literature there are still discussions on the possibility of such an incoherence and existence of paradoxes in the stoic theory. At first glance, stoic Cosmology gives the impression to both accept a kind of Determinism, and at the same time it undoubtedly argues for the moral (...) agent’s freedom of the Will. In pre-stoic or even other contemporary to Stoicism Philosophical Traditions, the definitions that these two terms/concepts are given, fairly accuse as incoherent any Theory that does not set them as “contraries”. Under these types of accusations, the stoic Cosmology and Theory of the Freedom of the Will is often to be included. This phenomenal self-contradiction inside the Principles of Stoicism becomes even more obvious in Epictetus, a philosopher of the Late Stoa. He is interested in practical ethics, thus the phenomenal contradiction gets more lucid. This would have augmented the criticism of the Stoic philosophy for incoherence, if Epictetus had not made his main philosophical aim/target : the clarification of how an agent’s Will can be Free inside a Universe ruled by Fate/Destiny ; namely, a Universe merely Determined by Nature’s/God’s Will. Epictetus’ originality appears in the way he interrelates the concept of Freedom of the Will with the concept of Destiny and Determinism, in order to accomplish their simultaneous co-existence. This approach guards him against being easily accused for incoherence and self-contradiction. Through the unique way he understands and defines the Moral Agency, which is the agent’s internal state/condition/disposition, he steers towards an integrated, accomplished, strong and coherent line of argument. This sturdy declaration is able to support the weight of the Consent to a Free Will, and thus a certain kind Freedom of the moral agent. The excellence of this line of argument is that it can bear also the burden of the Consent to the phenomenally contrary concept of Determinism and Destiny. The elements used to the construction of this argument, which is stretched throughout the whole epictetean corpus can be summarised to a few key concepts, which are: the things which are in our power and the things which are not in our power, the concept of Freedom. These concepts work towards his philosophical targeting, because of the special definition he gives them. Axiomatically Epictetus states that in order for man to be free, it is necessary to be liberated from what the body forces him to do. Desires, passions and beliefs are considered as elements which are external to the moral agent. The moral agent “shrinks” into the Will. Thus man has the capability to free himself from anything external to his Will and therefore to harmonise his own Will to the Will of Nature/God; namely, to will what Nature/God wills and thus never conflict to the external facts. Consequently, Epictetus’ solution, is to include in the category of τά οὐκ ἐφ' ἡμῖν anything that he defines as external to the prohairesis: the desires, beliefs, passions and in general anything the body entails, the external facts. Thus the prohairesis, remains unhindered and it is completely depended on man’s power ; as characteristically Epictetus writes, “not even Zeus himself can overpower” the prohairesis. -/- Dissertation for the MSc Ancient Philosophy (2008-2009) at The University of Edinburgh, supervised by Inna Kupreeva. (shrink)

The term_ freedom_ appears in many contexts in Kant's work, ranging from the cosmological to the moral to the theological. Can the diverse meanings Kant gave to the term be ordered systematically? To ask that question is to test the consistency and coherence of Kant's thought in its entirety. Widely praised when first published in France, The Coherence of Kant's Doctrine of Freedom articulates and interrelates the disparate senses of freedom in Kant's work. Bernard Carnois organizes all Kant's (...) usages into a logical "grammar," isolating and defining the individual meanings and pointing out their implications and limits. In a first step, he shows how Kant's notion of _intelligible character _makes possible a synthesis of transcendental freedom, as a problematic concept of theoretical reason, and practical freedom, as a fact demonstrated by experience. He then develops the concept of freedom under the rubric of the will's autonomy in the context of the moral law. And finally, Carnois persistently explores the role of negativity in Kant's idea of freedom. For within the magisterial coherence of the system the imperfection of human finitude is inscribed. This introduces the "history" of our freedom—a freedom which posits itself, but then inevitably denies itself, even while preserving the possibility of its regeneration. The only work in English to consider in detail all of Kant's writings on freedom, this book also introduces French Kant scholars whose works have often been unavailable to English-speaking readers. As both an interpretation of Kant and a trenchant analysis of the relationship between ethical commitments and metaphysical assumptions, it will be a useful addition to moral, religious, and political philosophy as well as to Kant scholarship. (shrink)

First of all, I define the concept of epistemic freedom in the light of the changing nature of educational practice that prioritise over-prescriptive conceptions of learning. I defend the ‘reality’ of this freedom against possible determinist-related criticisms. I do this by stressing the concept of agency as characterised by ‘becoming’. I also discuss briefly some of the technical literature on the subject. I then move on to discuss Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and Foucault’s idea of ‘productive power’: (...) I argue for the need of a counter-narrative of freedom that takes the form of a genealogy. Finally I discuss in more detail the nature of epistemic freedom and briefly discuss the ethical implications of the concept. (shrink)

In trying to say what modernism is , we must remind ourselves that it cannot and must not—to be properly described and understood—be confined only to the arts of music, literature, painting, sculpture, theater, architecture, those arts with which we normally associate the term “culture.” Modernism can be said to embrace, in the broadest terms, not only the arts of Western culture but also science, technology, the family, marriage, sexuality, economics, the politics of democracy, the politics of authoritarianism, the (...) politics of totalitarianism, and such academic disciplines as philosophy and the social sciences of sociology and anthropology . Its influence and effects have been all-pervasive. No corner of twentieth-century life has escaped its profound alteration of both the individual and society. It has radicalized all levels of human existence.What, then, is modernism?Some have described it as a state of “chronic revolution,” that is, revolution against the past, against tradition, against history itself. Others have pointed to its voracious appetite for innovation, for the search for the “new,” for the hunger to be “original”—to be the first and last with something unique and difference, whatever that something might be or in whatever area of human endeavor it might arise.Still others have characterized modernism as the application to all realms of human life of forms of structural rationalization, that is, finding rationally structured ways of being and doing regardless of consequences and, more especially, rationalizing away the mysteries and questions which have to do with meaning, that is, morality and ethics—those areas that lie outside the purely rational. And still others have viewed modernism as a condition of freedom within which the individual can be himself, unfettered and uninhibited, released from the drag of superego and conscience, a separate entity of being, unanswerable to others whether in the form of individuals or society as a whole.Last but not least, there are those who continue to see modernism as a self-perpetuating form of avant-gardism, always at the point of the interface between the present and the future, always ready to move on to the next stage because living itself is a process of constant change, constant motion, perpetual transformation. George Rochberg is the composer of a large body of musical works and the author of a recently published collection of essays, The Aesthetics of Survival, A Composer’s View of Twentieth-Century Music. He is currently writing his fifth symphony, on a commission from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 1983 he retired from the University of Pennsylvania as Emeritus Annenberg Professor of the Humanities. (shrink)

This collection of essays by one of the preeminent Kant scholars of our time transforms our understanding of both Kant's aesthetics and his ethics. Guyer shows that at the very core of Kant's aesthetic theory, disinterestedness of taste becomes an experience of freedom and thus an essential accompaniment to morality itself. At the same time he reveals how Kant's moral theory includes a distinctive place for the cultivation of both general moral sentiments and particular attachments on the basis (...) of the most rigorous principle of duty. Kant's thought is placed in a rich historical context including such figures as Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Burke, Kames, as well as Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Schiller, and Hegel. Other topics treated are the sublime, natural versus artistic beauty, genius and art history, and duty and inclination. These essays extend and enrich the account of Kant's aesthetics in the author's earlier book, Kant and the Claims of Taste. (shrink)

We call beliefs reasonable or unreasonable, justified or unjustified. What does this imply about belief? Does this imply that we are responsible for our beliefs and that we should be blamed for our unreasonable convictions? Or does it imply that we are in control of our beliefs and that what we believe is up to us? Reason Without Freedom argues that the major problems of epistemology have their roots in concerns about our control over and responsibility for belief. David (...) Owens focuses on the arguments of Descartes, Locke and Hume - the founders of epistemology - and presents a critical discussion of the current trends in contemporary epistemology. He proposes that the problems we confront today - scepticism, the analysis of knowlege, and debates on epistemic justification - can be tackled only once we have understood the moral psychology of belief. This can be resolved when we realise that our responsibility for beliefs is profoundly different from our rationality and agency, and that memory and testimony can preserve justified belief without preserving the evidence which might be used to justify it. Reason Without Freedom should be of value to those interested in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind and action, ethics, and the history of 17th and 18th century. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Arthur O. Lovejoy and the Challenge of Intellectual HistoryJohn Patrick DigginsMen and ideas advance by parricide, by which the children kill, if not their fathers, at least the beliefs of their fathers, and arrive at new beliefs.Sir Isaiah Berlin1I was supposed to wind up the study of mine, and become the Lovejoy of my generation—that's the silly talk of scholarly people.Saul Bellow2To become "the Lovejoy," with the implication that (...) each generation could only have one, was the ambition of Moses Herzog in Saul Bellow's novel, written a few years after he had won the Nobel Award for literature. Herzog presents the life of a professor who has as many sexual escapades and as much personal angst as he has scholarly interests, too unfocused to be another Lovejoy. Bellow's novel is full of letters to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other modernist minds who brought Western intellectual life to a standstill, posing a lasting question mark about the possibilities of knowledge. Bellow taught in the program of the Committee on Social Thought at [End Page 181] the University of Chicago. His colleague and close friend Allan Bloom also taught in that program. But when Bloom wrote the best seller, The Closing of the American Mind, he cited Nietzsche and Heidegger as part of the "German disease" that did so much to subvert academic thought, supposedly turning students into zombies, walking air heads responding only to vacuous visual stimuli and mind-numbing music, with Rock n' Roll blasting through a Walkman and having the effect of a "masturbational fantasy."3While Bellow's epistolary novel interrogated modernist thinkers, Bloom's popular tract of the times cited many classical thinkers as a countervoice to the modernists—Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Kant, Lessing, Schiller, Locke, and Rousseau. Such minds also figured prominently in the works of Arthur O. Lovejoy. But the recitation of such names leaves the impression that Lovejoy concerned himself only with the main currents of European intellectual history. On the contrary, two of his most important and often neglected books are The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Reflections on Human Nature.4 There one finds profound meditations on two vital episodes in the history of ideas in America: the Enlightenment and the philosophy of pragmatism. Perry Miller, arguably America's greatest intellectual historian, skipped over the Enlightenment as he proceeded to study the Puritans and then the transcendentalists, and he never seemed to have much interest in the pragmatists.5 But what Lovejoy had to write on the Enlightenment and pragmatism is richly ironic.The pragmatists claimed to have liberated modern thought from the easy assumptions of the "Age of Reason," and today's poststructuralists charge that eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers deceived themselves in looking to the advent of knowledge as an answer to the presence of power. Lovejoy's books offer a different take entirely, making us aware that it is the modernist thinkers who may be deceiving themselves with the dubious promises of pragmatism and the arrogant conceits of poststructuralism and deconstruction, whose proponents claim to be the first "masters [End Page 182] of suspicion." In many of Lovejoy's works, nothing is resolved and everything is left suspended in a state of honest suspicion.Lovejoy was comfortable with contradiction, and hence more in tune with Augustine, who looked to the depths of human consciousness for spiritual knowledge, than with Aquinas, who believed evidence for God and human freedom could be found in reason alone. Nowhere is Lovejoy's affinity for the emotions of consciousness better seen than in his several essays on romanticism, both English, French, German, and even its origins in Chinese aesthetics and Confucian ethics. It was not reason and the notion of order and regulation that appealed to Lovejoy but the spontaneous promptings of nature springing forth without reflection or design. He delighted in quoting Voltaire against classicists and scholastics. "Worship God and practice justice—this is the sole religion of the Chinese literati.... O Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure, Francis, Dominic, Luther, Calvin, canons of Westminister, have you anything better? For four thousand years this religion, so simple and so noble, has endured in... (shrink)

Kant describes the concept of freedom as "the keystone of the whole structure of a system of pure reason, even of speculative reason." Kant's theory of freedom thus plays a foundational and unifying role in all aspects of his philosophy and is thus of significant interest to historians of Kant's philosophy. Kant's theory of freedom has also played a significant role in contemporary debates in metaphysics, normative ethics, and metaethics. This volume brings historians of Kant's philosophy (...) into conversation with contemporary metaphysicians and ethicists with the aim of representing the current state of scholarship on Kant's and Kantian accounts of freedom while at the same time opening new avenues of exploration. The Idea of Freedom includes papers by leading scholars on a range of historical and contemporary topics centrally related to the Kantian theory of freedom, including transcendental idealism, determinism, Kant's normative ethical theory, Kant's conception of cognition, Kant's theory of beauty, Kant's conception of logic, and many others. (shrink)

The author of the paper believes that the unfinished character of Descartes’ philosophical doctrine makes possible underestimation and distorted reception of the basic intention of his meditation concentrated on the problem of human being. This results in spreading the position of technomorphism regarding the doctrine in general and, particularly, the reduction of Des-cartes’ anthropological project to physiology and medicine. Today’s research literature de-monstrates significant shifts in the methodology of the history of philosophy. This makes possible deeper understanding of (...) Descartes’ purpose concerning the creation of a holistic phi-losophical system, which had to be crowned by anthropology, concentrated on the Self-Mastery of human being as a spiritual entity. (shrink)

John Wyclif has too frequently been described as "Morning Star of the Reformation" and only recently begun to be studied as a fourteenth-century English philosopher and theologian. This work draws on recent scholarship situating Wyclif in his fourteenth-century milieu to present a survey of his thought and writings as a coherent theological position arising from Oxford's "Golden Age" of theology. Lahey argues that many of Wyclif's best known critiques of the fourteenth-century Church arise from his philosophical commitment to an Augustinian (...) realism evocative of the thought of Robert Grosseteste and Anselm of Canterbury. This realism is comprehensible in terms of Wyclif's sustained focus on semantics and the properties of terms and propositions, a "linguistic turn" characterizing post-Ockham philosophical theology. Arising from this propositional realism is a strong emphasis on the place of Scripture in both formal and applied theology, which was the starting point for many of Wyclif's quarrels with the ecclesiastical status quo in late fourteenth-century England. This survey takes into account both Wyclif's earlier, philosophical works and his later works, including sermons and Scripture commentary. Wyclif's belief that Scripture is the eternal and perfect divine word, the paradigm of human discourse and the definitive embodiment of truth in creation is central to an understanding of the ties he believes relate theoretical and practical philosophy to theology. This connection links Wyclif's interest in the propositional structure of reality to his realism, his hermeneutic program, and to his agenda for reform of the Church. Lahey's survey also highlights Wyclif's rejection of Bradwardine's determinism in favor of a model of human freedom in light of God's perfect foreknowledge, and also explores the relation of Wyclif's spatiotemporal atomism to his rejection of transubstantiation. This is the first book-length, comprehensive survey of Wyclif's thought, and will be of interest to students of later medieval theology, philosophy, history, and literature. (shrink)

The emergence of organic, metabolic, cognitive and cultural codes points us to the need for a new kind of explanatory causality, and a different kind of bio-logic— one dependent on, but different from, the deterministic logic derived from mechanical causality, and one which can account for the increase in semiotic freedom which is evident in the biological hierarchy. Building upon previous work (Bruni 2003), in this article I provide a stipulative definition of semiotic freedom and its relation to (...) causality in biological and cognitive systems. To do so, I will first discuss the close relation that triadic causality and semiotic freedom have to the notions of teleology and emergence, and how the latter two are interrelated in living systems. I pinpoint some of the reservations that these notions have encountered in the history of science (including evolutionary biology and cognitive science), but stress also their necessity in the study of any given biological and cognitive system. I draw a distinction between horizontal and vertical emergence in order to arrive at a notion of ‘second order emergence’ that affords us a more viable definition of semiotic freedom. I will then attempt to show that all of these concepts are of paramount importance when we come to study processes of sensing, perception andcognition at any level of a living system. Accordingly, these ideas are part of a framework-in-development to research the scale of thresholds of semiotic freedom, by assuming a top-down approach i.e., by starting from the highest levels of semiotic freedom and cognitive processes, and exploring how those processes disaggregate into lesser degrees of freedom. I thus hope to bridge the gap between those levels from above. (shrink)

This article questions the universal value attributed to the idea of democracy within a global intercultural context. The point is: do “mature” Western democracies,with their history, their nature and their limits, meet the needs of intercultural ethics? A first factual finding shows that outside, at the frontiers of “mature” democracies, all possible openings to the exercise of democratic freedoms, to the protection of human rights, and to any hybrid form of relationship and dialogue are near to nothing. Not (...) even within Western liberal democracies do egalitarian guarantees, which in any case are the heart and soul of the culture of democratic societies, manage to make room for the recognition of differences in equality and for truly dialogic practices. When they face up to the needs of a possible ethical culture, the principles that underpin contemporary democracies (one of them being universal equality) show an unpliability and an ambivalence often concealed up to now. Conversely, an a posteriori and artificially progressive pattern of the historical course of democracies has been constructed that has ended up “triumphing” and attaining the global, universal “success” of our days. (shrink)

IN HIS EARLY, UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS ON ETHICS, Schleiermacher sketched the framework for a theory of human agency in which he defends a soft determinist view of freedom. He developed his theory as an alternative to noumenal causality, which he had come to reject as inconsistent with a comprehensive scientific conception of the world. Even as a young student, Schleiermacher was convinced that some form of naturalism is inescapable—we are firmly rooted within nature and history—and that, accordingly, our (...) conceptions of morality and religion, to some extent, must be carved out within a naturalistic framework. Naturally, Schleiermacher found transcendental freedom to be an indefensible exception to natural causation and to our interconnectedness with the natural world. Equally important, he found it to be unnecessary for and an obstacle to a sound moral theory. In his early notebooks we find the following entry: “Speculative reason’s concept of transcendental freedom is indispensable only for an otherworldly subject.” Yet, on the first page of his treatise on freedom, Schleiermacher highlights the impasse between Kantian and Leibnizian conceptions of freedom and intimates his dissatisfaction with both theories. The dissatisfaction with Leibniz, though never directly stated, stems from Leibniz’s atomistic conception of causality and inspires Schleiermacher to think seriously about issues in moral psychology which had been ignored or left undeveloped in the Leibnizian and, as it turns out, Kantian views. As we shall see, Schleiermacher discerned that human action originates from a complex constellation. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such (...) as law and medicine, truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

What is freedom? The contemporary history of humanity is a quest for enduring human freedom over oppression, subjugation and tyranny of many forms. In that pursuit, many wars have been fought, and millions of lives have perished, and many ideologies were born. In simple terms, freedom to the ability to act or change without being constrained. Freedom manifests when obstacles to initiate change or to express free will are removed. From a needs perspective, freedom (...) is when an individual can pursue his or her needs, wants and aspirations freely. However, freedom may not be absolute; some constraints or caveats can manifest from personal ethics and morality, family, cultural, faith systems and governance structures. It may also differ from one society to another. From a religious or philosophical perspective, freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy, and only exist in a human realm. This type of freedom is also known as political freedom expressed in the forms of human rights and civil liberties, which are often legislated and protected by laws. Nonetheless, the limits and depths of political freedoms such as freedom of choice, assembly, association, and freedom of expression are often debated and sometimes challenged through modern history. (shrink)

The book deals with the changing nature and with the history of the concept of scientific determinism from the classical mechanics until the time immediately preceding quantum mechanics: such a historical-philosophical reconstruction is aimed at (1) signalizing and overcoming the deficiencies of the received opinion on the topic and (2) understanding better a concept which has influenced science from the beginning. -/- Before dealing with historical matters I develop in the first Chapter a kind of new, three-dimensional “measurement (...) system” for analyzing any concept of scientific determinism: many different concepts have been developed in the course of history, and we need a classification system which, on the one hand, is inclusive and broad enough to deal with different concepts; on the other hand, which makes possible to differentiate with some precision between them. My “measurement system” has three dimension or parameter: the “strength” (of the determining link between different states of the physical system), the “depth” (depending on how strong the ontological commitment of the particular concept of scientific determinism is), and the breadth (referring to the domain or the object, to which a deterministic evolution is ascribed). -/- In the second chapter I discuss briefly some main shortcomings of the received opinion about scientific determinism. Then I try to identify the “core” of scientific determinism at its origins while at the same time embedding it in the broader historical-cultural context especially of the Renaissance. On the one hand I show how the core of scientific determinism was mathematical, and this distinguished it from other related concepts, as mechanism, the principle of sufficient reason, and the aristotelic conception of science. On the other hand, precisely the support which these related concepts provided to scientific determinism, together with its mathematical nature, endowed it with an incredible resistance against empirical classification. -/- In the following three chapters I analyze the historic-philosophical development of scientific determinism along the three parameter of my measurement system. -/- In the third Chapter I reconstruct the weakening of scientific determinism with respect to its depth: the starting point is the question about the extent in which the deterministic mathematical descriptions do refer. In the development of mechanics into analytical mechanics the more and more formal character of its mathematical descriptions became evident and it became less obvious that these formal, deterministic structures also have an immediate material truth. Parallel developments within epistemology, starting with Kantian philosophy (which I deal with quite in detail), let the deterministic structures (principle, laws, equations, causal relations) appear less absolute and real and more as a product of reason, as conventions, or as models. A brief consideration of the interpretation of mechanics and its principles by Jacobi, Hertz, Mach and Poincaré shows the implications of these developments. -/- The fourth chapter reconstructs the weakening of scientific determinism with respect to the strength of the determining link: here my work deepens the track which has been opened by Ian Hacking, who interpreted the so-called “probabilistic revolution” in the 19th Century as the main reason for the erosion of determinism. The increasing pervasiveness of statistical methods in the social and natural sciences in the course of the 19th Century gave rise to a conception of scientific laws which could dispense with strict determinism. A new, empirical interpretation of probability (Frequentism) and the statistical explanation of thermodynamic phenomena in physics even suggested chance phenomena to be a necessary condition for the emergence of natural laws. -/- The last part of my work (Ch. 5, 6 and 7) considers the period (2nd half of the 19th century until ca. 1920) in which the concept of scientific determinism became explicit and was discussed as a world-picture or a world-view – that is, in its maximal breadth. I argue that there were two main reasons for the emergence of an explicit and ideological opposition “determinism vs. indeterminism” at that time: the first was the successful application of the deterministic paradigm to sociology, history, physiology and psychology in the course of the 19th Century, which provided scientific determinism with ethical implications (in particular with respect to the problem of free will, which scientific determinism seemed to deny). The second, related reason is that in the 19th Century natural scientists became public men, science was increasingly popularized and scientific issues were increasingly related to life-issues, to worldview-questions, and even to politics. In Chapter 6 I reconstruct the debates on the issue “determinism vs. indeterminism” in such a public, ideological and sometimes even political context. Among the discussants were Fechner, Du Bois-Reymond, Helmholtz, Bernard, Ostwald, Haeckel, Boussinesq, Maxwell, Boutroux, Poincaré, Renouvier, James und Peirce. Also in Vienna the debate on the issue of determinism was fervid and took ideological and political connotations: Michael Stöltzner and Deborah Coen have pointed to a particular tradition of “Vienna Indeterminism” (Stöltzner), or Viennese liberal probabilism (Coen), which was characterized by a strongly empirical conception of science and by the full acceptance and appreciation of statistical thinking in science. In the last Chapter of my work I focus on the early philosophy of Edgar Zilsel, a philosopher who stood near to the Vienna Circle and who has been much neglected in the literature by now, and I suggest considering it as part of the “Vienna Indeterminism”. First, I show how he gave an indeterministic foundation both to statistical and causal knowledge as well as to irreversibility in physics. Second, I inquire into his philosophy of probability and show how it developed in parallel to the ones of Hans Reichenbach and Richard von Mises. Finally, Zilsel happens to be a further, relevant case-study for pointing to the ideological and political side of the issue of determinism. -/- At the end of this reconstruction it should have become clear how no physical theory, no empirical evidence and no experimental confirmation can support or contradict scientific determinism in its non-trivial formulations. The validity of any such formulation depends strongly not only (from the systematical point of view) from the definition of other concepts (like time, physical state, causality etc.), but also from the particular conception of science which more or less implicitly constitutes its background, and which is subjected to historical change. -/- (ISBN: 9783495491034). (shrink)

Addressing himself not only to an academic but to a generally educated public, Lamont introduces the perennial debate between determinism and freedom of choice with liberal and lively quotes from both sides down through history. He proceeds to argue with passionate conviction that both objective contingency and necessity exist as correlative cosmic ultimates, and that the world must therefore be viewed as essentially pluralistic. Moving from a consideration of contingency to the notion of potentiality, Lamont analyzes (...) class='Hi'>freedom of choice as the actualization of one of a plurality of genuinely open alternatives which are made possible by contingency and potentiality. Following Hartshorne, he argues that the relation of universal to particular, of determinable to determinate, is one of indeterminate or contingent or potential to determinate or actual; on this ground he finds contingency or freedom inherent in the very act of rational deliberation. Moreover, scientific theories of probability are interpreted as confirming the existence of this sort of objective contingency. Determinism on the other hand, he maintains, not only rules out universals altogether but denies the dynamic character of time, undercuts the notion of ethical responsibility, and defies common sense and ordinary use of language. The book is highly readable--and highly provocative. A fair example of its provocative character is provided in the mileage Lamont gets out of his crucial chapter which seeks to establish the existence of objective contingency as a cosmic ultimate which "demolishes the case for a completely determined universe". On the one hand, contingency is taken to be "simply the opposite of determinism or necessity, meaning that an event, object, or state of affairs either may or may not be". On this interpretation it is not difficult to see why Lamont feels that "freedom of choice is obviously an impossibility unless contingency objectively exists in Nature". On the other hand, it turns out that what it means to say that a contingent event "may or may not be" is perhaps not after all so clearly incompatible with determinism. Thus contingency "does not imply that any event is causeless" but only that it is possible for causally determined factors to impinge on other factors--themselves in turn causally but independently determined. In the long run this seems to involve an act of faith that "the infinitely diverse world of Nature radiates from different centers... that if there ever was a beginning to the universe, which is most doubtful, it would have been beginnings, that is, a multitude of first causes all popping at once". Moreover, it is not wholly clear just how this sort of contingency--which seems to be non-teleological and by definition must operate from outside the causal sequence--is supposed to make possible or even provide a parallel to the exercise of free choice. To a believer in freedom, Lamont's account of contingency seems to offer a meager foundation for so important a theory.--R. D. (shrink)

Recently there has been a renewed interest in the ethical value of literature. However, how exactly does literature contribute to our ethical understanding? In Literature, Ethics, and the Emotions, Kenneth Asher argues that literary scholars should locate this question in the long and various history of moral philosophy. On the basis of his own reading of this history, Asher contends for the centrality of emotions in our ethical lives and shows how literature - (...) novels, poetry, and drama - can each contribute to crucial emotional understanding. Individual chapters on T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and George Bernard Shaw give detailed analyses of how this contribution takes shape even in modernist authors who try to reconfigure the very nature of the self. (shrink)

Manipulation arguments for incompatibilism all build upon some example or other in which an agent is covertly manipulated into acquiring a psychic structure on the basis of which she performs an action. The featured agent, it is alleged, is manipulated into satisfying conditions compatibilists would take to be sufficient for acting freely. Such an example used in the context of an argument for incompatibilism is meant to elicit the intuition that, due to the pervasiveness of the manipulation, the agent does (...) not act freely and is not morally responsible for what she does. It is then claimed that any agent's coming to be in the same psychic state through a deterministic process is no different in any relevant respect from the pertinent manner of manipulation. Hence, it is concluded that compatibilists' proposed sufficient conditions for free will and moral responsibility are inadequate, and that free will and moral responsibility are incompatible with determinism. One way for compatibilists to resist certain manipulation arguments is by appealing to historical requirements that, they contend, relevant manipulated agents lack. While a growing number of compatibilists advance an historical thesis, in this paper, I redouble my efforts to show, in defense of nonhistorical compatibilists like Harry Frankfurt, that there is still life left in a nonhistorical view. The historical compatibilists, I contend, have fallen shy of discrediting their nonhistorical compatibilist rivals. (shrink)

In December 1995, in his presidential address to the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, Jerome Schneewind spoke about the transformation of ethics by Immanuel Kant and his sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth-century predecessors. More interestingly, at least for medievalists, Kent writes here about Kant's medieval predecessors: the scholastic philosopher-theologians who first argued that only a good will is unconditionally praiseworthy. Introductory chapters seek to clear away some of the distortions found in the secondary literature on the (...) class='Hi'>history of medieval philosophy and to describe accurately medieval attitudes toward Aristotle and Aristotelian ethics. Kent then concerns herself with three major topics in medieval ethics: freedom, moral weakness, and virtue. (shrink)