In Reasons and the Good Roger Crisp answers some of the oldest questions in moral philosophy. Fundamental to ethics, he claims, is the idea of ultimate reasons for action; and he argues controversially that these reasons do not depend on moral concepts. He investigates the nature of reasons themselves, and how we come to know them. He defends a hedonistic theory of well-being and an account of practical reason according to which we can give some, though not overriding, (...) priority to our own good over that of others. (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;The thesis consists in the development and application of an ideal utilitarian moral theory. ;In chapter one, classical Mental State and modern Desire theories of prudential value are rejected. In chapter two, perfectionism is rejected and an alternative ideal utilitarian Objective List theory is set out. In chapter three, it is argued that prudential rationality requires maximization and temporal neutrality. The aggregation and incommensurability of values is (...) discussed. In chapter four, it is argued that value alone gives rise to grounding reasons for action; the only values are prudential values; we are required to be personally as well as temporally neutral; moral rationality is maximizing. A problem arising when a certain form of incommensurability is combined with the notion of maximizing expected utility is examined. In chapter five, an intrapersonally indirect form of moral theory is defended. ;In the second, practical part of the thesis, the theory developed in the first part is applied to two moral problems: vegetarianism and future generations. In chapter six, the conclusion is that utilitarianism requires us to eat non-intensively-reared meat and to abstain from intensively reared meat. In chapter seven, population problems arising from Derek Parfit's work are considered in the light of the theory. (shrink)

This article is an edited transcript of the keynote session at the 16th annual Philosophy of Management conference in Oxford on 23 June 2024. The keynote took the form of a dialogue between Roger Crisp (Director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford) and Chris Cowton (Emeritus Professor and former Dean of the Business School at the University of Huddersfield and formerly Associate Director of the Institute of Business (...) Ethics). The dialogue was facilitated by Nigel Laurie, formerly managing partner at London Facilitators and founder of the Philosophy of Management journal and the annual conference (Laurie and Cherry 2001). This dialogue joins a long-lasting conversation in the journal of Philosophy of Management on philosophy and its applications to management practice and theory (Eabrasu, 2023; Tsahuridu, 2023) by offering insightful personal perspectives especially as seen through institutional lenses. (shrink)

This paper is a plea for hedonism to be taken more seriously. It begins by charting hedonism's decline, and suggests that this is a result of two major objections: the claim that hedonism is the 'philosophy of swine', reducing all value to a single common denominator, and Nozick's 'experience machine' objection. There follows some elucidation of the nature of hedonism, and of enjoyment in particular. Two types of theory of enjoyment are outlined-intemalism, according to which enjoyment has some special (...) 'feeling tone'. and externalism, according to which enjoyment is any kind of experience to which we take some special attitude, such as that of desire. lnternalism-the traditional view--is defended against current externalist orthodoxy. The paper ends with responses to the philosophy of swine and the experience machine objections. (shrink)

Business ethics, as an academic discipline directed at influencing business itself, has now developed into a sophisticated interdisciplinary enquiry, with its own journals, societies, and specialist practitioners. The contributors reflect on the state of, and prospects for, the field ofbusiness ethics. While the scope of each chapter is intentionally broad, the particular perspectives adopted, themes addressed, by the various authors display considerable variety. The order of the chapters reflects a movement from the armchair to the field, with insights from a (...) number ofperspectives including philosophy, anthropology, management, history, social science methodology, and education. Each contributor is a recognised expert in their own particular area. The book is essential reading for all interested in researching the development of business ethics. It will also be of benefit to students and business people interested in the development of business ethics as a field of study. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of the emotion of compassion or pity, and the corresponding virtue. It begins by placing the emotion of compassion in the moral conceptual landscape, and then moves to reject the currently dominant view, a version of Aristotelianism developed by Martha Nussbaum, in favour of a non-cognitive conception of compassion as a feeling. An alternative neo-Aristotelian account is then outlined. The relation of the virtue of compassion to other virtues is plotted, and some doubts sown about (...) its practical significance. (shrink)

We take welfarism in moral theory to be the claim that the well-being of individuals matters and is the only consideration that fundamentally matters, from a moral point of view. We argue that criticisms of welfarism due to G.E. Moore, Donald Regan, Charles Taylor and Amartya Sen all fail. The final section of our paper is a critical survey of the problems which remain for welfarists in moral theory.

Three-dimensionalists , sometimes referred to as endurantists, think that objects persist through time by being “wholly present” at every time they exist. But what is it for something to be wholly present at a time? It is surprisingly difficult to say. The threedimensionalist is free, of course, to take ‘is wholly present at’ as one of her theory’s primitives, but this is problematic for at least one reason: some philosophers claim not to understand her primitive. Clearly the three-dimensionalist would (...) be better off if she could state her theory in terms accessible to all. We think she can. What is needed is a definition of ‘is wholly present at’ that all can understand. in this paper, we offer one. (shrink)

The atonement is one of the central and defining doctrines of Christian theology. Yet the nature of the atonement – how it is that Christ's life and death on the cross actually atone for human sin – remains a theological conundrum. This article offers a new argument for an old theory of the atonement, namely, penal substitution. First, it sets out the theological context for the argument. This involves giving some account of alternative theories of the atonement in the (...) tradition, and why penal substitution might be thought a particularly appealing way of thinking about the atonement. The article then presents an argument for a version of penal substitution that involves the application of an idea found in some Augustinian accounts of the transmission of sin from Adam to his progeny. At the end of this exposition, it offers some brief comments on the metaphysics undergirding the theology of this argument. The final section discusses several theological and philosophical objections to this reasoning. (shrink)

The paper begins by noting the widespread disagreement that has existed in philosophy from its very inception until now. It is claimed that Henry Sidgwick was right to see the main debate in ethics as between egoists, consequentialists, and deontologists. This raises the question whether the best approach might be to seek a position based on the different theories rather than one alone. Some clarification is then offered of the main questions asked in ethics, and it is claimed that the (...) primary ethical question is that of Socrates: how should one live? Substantive agreement between our three normative theories is possible, but unlikely; and explanatory agreement is conceptually impossible. More restricted agreement may be possible, though doubts can be raised about Derek Parfit’s ‘triple theory’. One might attempt to combine different elements of the theories, syncretically, but again agreement is unlikely. The paper ends by considering the epistemic implications of disagreement, and with a recommendation of a more eirenic methodology for moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues against Martin Peterson in favour of the ‘standard view’ of rightness, according to which rightness does not come in degrees. It begins with a defence of the standard view against the charge that it is committed to ‘deontic leaps’. It goes on to claim that greater conceptual parsimony would allow Peterson to avoid certain problems involving equality and related matters that arise out of his conception of moral value, and that Peterson should take the same instrumentalist attitude (...) towards the norms of practical rationality as he does towards the norms of common-sense morality. The paper closes with some doubts about Peterson’s programme of consequentialization and its alleged advantages. (shrink)

In recent decades, the idea has become common that so-called virtue ethics constitutes a third option in ethics in addition to consequentialism and deontology. This paper argues that, if we understand ethical theories as accounts of right and wrong action, this is not so. Virtue ethics turns out to be a form of deontology . The paper then moves to consider the Aristotelian distinction between right or virtuous action on the one hand, and acting rightly or virtuously on the other. (...) It is claimed that virtue might play an important role in an explanation of acting virtuously , but that such explanations can be charged with ‘double-counting’ the moral value of the virtues. The paper concludes that, if we focus on the question of the value of virtue, rather than on the notion of right action, there is room for a self-standing and important view which could be described as virtue ethics. (shrink)

The last few years have seen a remarkable revival of interest in the virtues, which have regained their central role in moral philosophy. This thought-provoking new collection is a much-needed survey of virtue ethics and virtue theory. The specially commissioned articles by an international team of philosophers represent the state of the art in this subject and will set the agenda for future work in the area. The contributors--including Lawrence Blum, John Cottingham, Julia Driver, Rosalind Hursthouse, Terence Irwin, Susan (...) Moller Okin, Onora O'Neill, Michael Slote, Michael Stocker, and David Wiggins--cover practical virtue ethics, ancient views of the virtues, impartiality and partiality, Kant, utilitarianism, human nature, natural and artificial virtues, virtue and the good life, the vices, emotions, politics, feminism, moral education, and community. (shrink)

Hope is a positive emotion that plays a pivotal role in intractable conflicts and conflict resolution processes by inducing conciliatory attitudes for peace. As a catalyser for conflict resolution, it is important to further understand hope in such contexts. In this article we present a novel framework for understanding hope in contexts of intergroup conflict. Utilizing appraisal theory of emotions and heavily relying on the implicit theories framework, we describe three targets upon which hope appraisals focus in intractable conflict—the (...) conflict, the outgroup, and the ingroup. Next, we describe the importance of developing ways to experimentally induce hope, and utilize the appraisal-target framework to describe and classify existing and potential interventions for inducing hope in intractable conflict resolution. (shrink)

Reformed theology is often thought to be antipathetic to virtue theory. However, Jonathan Edwards is a counterexample to this way of thinking. In this article, I offer an account of Edwards’s moral thought as a case study of Reformed theology that is also a species of virtue theory, focusing on what he says about the formation of character. I argue that key doctrinal commitments drive his moral theology, and generate some interesting problems for his ethics. Although his work (...) is not without shortcomings, Edwards is a thinker whose moral theology might be usefully repaired and retrieved by contemporary theologians in the Reformed tradition for whom ‘duties are founded on doctrines’. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to take an overview of the current position of utilitarian theory. It begins by providing a definition of utilitarianism as it is found in the works of Bentham, Mill and Sidgwick. These authors are all interpreted as intuitionists. It is claimed that the main rivals to utilitarianism are egoism on the one hand, and reflective non-egoistic pluralism, as found in the work of Ross, on the other. The significance of disagreement between proponents of these (...) views is explained, and modern attempts to ground utilitarianism are found lacking. The article ends with a plea for history. (shrink)

In recent systematic theology versions of the Ransom account of the atonement have proliferated. Much of this work uses Gustav Aulén's Christus Victor as a point of departure. In this paper I first distinguish between models and theories of atonement. Then I discuss three recent theological perorations of the Ransom model as a prelude to setting out four interpretive strategies for understanding this view of atonement. I then offer some critical remarks on these strategies, concluding that the Ransom view as (...) set forth here does not provide a complete model of atonement. (shrink)

This paper argues that suspension of judgement is the appropriate response to disagreement about ultimate moral principles, and outlines the implications of such a response. It begins with an argument influenced by Sextus and Sidgwick for the rationality of suspension, and then illustrates fundamental disagreement with the case of promising. Replies are offered to the arguments against the rationality of suspension offered by Robert Audi in his discussion of moral perception. It is noted in particular that such rationality does not (...) depend on the assumption that epistemic peerhood is widespread. The limited nature of ethical agreement is illustrated, along with the limited implications of disagreement if a less adversarial and more constructive ethical methodology is adopted. (shrink)

Making sense of the stories that people with Alzheimer's tell: a journey with my motherConfabulation or pseudo‐reminiscence of the sort produced by people with Alzheimer's is reconsidered by applying existing theories about the structure of narrative and work on reminiscence, and the construction of a life story to the stories told by the author's mother. This approach provides the basis for going beyond a negative estimate of confabulatory stories based on their apparent confusion of past and present, truth and fantasy., (...) to a more positive estimate of diem as complying with the norms of narrative, and as being functional for their teller as a means both of interaction and of reconstructing an identity. It also allows for identification of certain predominant themes, which may help one to grasp die general sense of such stories. (shrink)

In this paper we describe the development of the Interaction Space Theory developed as part of the SANE project. EU framework 5 IST project sustainable accommodation for the new economy, IST 2000-25-257 The EU funded project provided an inter-disciplinary context for the study of interactions in the hybrid workplace where physical work environment is enhanced with information and communication technologies (ICT) which enable collaboration with remote partners. We explain how the theoretical approach, empirical work and methodological strategy employed by (...) SANE researchers contribute toward the social intelligence design approach through the development of the methodology for identification of workplace requirements for mobile knowledge workers. In addition, we demonstrate how empirical findings, based upon our theoretical approach, can lead to development of novel methods and techniques for evaluating the impact of new and emerging technologies in the workplace. (shrink)

Since the world is full of indeterminacy, the Neutrosophics found their place into contemporary research. We now introduce for the first time the notions of Neutrosophic Crisp Sets and Neutrosophic Topology on Crisp Sets. We develop the 2012 notion of Neutrosophic Topological Spaces and give many practical examples. Neutrosophic Science means development and applications of Neutrosophic Logic, Set, Measure, Integral, Probability etc., and their applications in any field. It is possible to define the neutrosophic measure and consequently the (...) neutrosophic integral and neutrosophic probability in many ways, because there are various types of indeterminacies, depending on the problem we need to solve. Indeterminacy is different from randomness. Indeterminacy can be caused by physical space, materials and type of construction, by items involved in the space, or by other factors. In 1965 [51], Zadeh generalized the concept of crisp set by introducing the concept of fuzzy set, corresponding to the situation in which there is no precisely defined set;there are increasing applications in various fields, including probability, artificial intelligence, control systems, biology and economics. Thus, developments in abstract mathematics using the idea of fuzzy sets possess sound footing. In accordance, fuzzy topological spaces were introduced by Chang [12] and Lowen [33]. After the development of fuzzy sets, much attention has been paid to the generalization of basic concepts of classical topology to fuzzy sets and accordingly developing a theory of fuzzy topology [1-58]. In 1983, the intuitionistic fuzzy set was introduced by K. Atanassov [55, 56, 57] as a generalization of the fuzzy set, beyond the degree of membership and the degree of non-membership of each element. In 1999 and 2002, Smarandache [71, 72, 73, 74] defined the notion of Neutrosophic Sets, which is a generalization of Zadeh’s fuzzy set and Atanassov's intuitionistic fuzzy set. Some neutrosophic concepts have been investigated by Salama et al. [61-70]. Forwarding the study of neutrosophic sets, this book consists of seven chapters, targeting to:  generalize the previous studies in [1-59], and[91-94] so to define the neutrosopic crisp set and neutrosophic set concepts;  discuss their main properties; A. A. Salama & Florentin Smarandache  introduce and study some concepts of neutrosophic crisp and neutrosophic topological spaces and deduce their properties;  deduce many types of functions and give the relationships between different neutrosophic topological spaces, which helps to build new properties of neutrosophic topological spaces;  stress once more the importance of Neutrosophic Ideal as a nontrivial extension of neutrosophic set and neutrosophic logic [71, 72, 73, 74];  propose applications on computer sciences by using neutrosophic sets. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce new types of neutrosophic crisp sets with three types 1, 2, 3. After given the fundamental definitions and operations, we obtain several properties, and discussed the relationship between neutrosophic crisp sets and others. Also, we introduce and study the neutrosophic crisp point and neutrosophic crisp relations. Possible applications to database are touched upon.

Roger Crisp distinguishes a positive and a negative aspect of the buck-passing account of goodness (BPA), and argues that the positive account should be dropped in order to avoid certain problems, in particular, that it implies eliminativism about value. This eliminativism involves what I call an ontological claim, the claim that there is no real property of goodness, and an error theory, the claim that all value talk is false. I argue first that the positive aspect of the (...) BPA is necessary to explain the negative aspect. I accept the ontological claim but argue that this does not imply any sort of error theory about value. (shrink)

The neutrosophic sets were known since 1999, and because of their wide applications and their great flexibility to solve the problems, we used these the concepts to define a new types of neutrosophic crisp closed sets and limit points in neutrosophic crisp topological space, namly [neutrosophic crisp Gem sets and neutrosophic crisp Turig points] respactvely, we stady their properties in details and join it with topological concepts. Finally we used [neutrosophic crisp Gem sets and neutrosophic (...) crisp Turig points] to introduce of topological concepts as: neutrosophic crisp closed (open) sets, neutrosophic crisp closure, neutrosophic crisp interior, neutrosophic crisp extrior and neutrosophic crisp boundary which are fundamental for further reserch on neutrosophic crisp topology and will setrengthen the foundations of theory of neutrosophic topological spaces. (shrink)

In this article I respond to comments and objections raised in the special issue on my book The Dimensions of Consequentialism. I defend my multi-dimensional consequentialist theory against a range of challenges articulated by Thomas Schmidt, Campbell Brown, Frances Howard-Snyder, Roger Crisp, Vuko Andric and Attila Tanyi, and Jan Gertken. My aim is to show that multi-dimensional consequentialism is, at least, a coherent and intuitively plausible alternative to one-dimensional theories such as utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and mainstream accounts of egalitarianism. (...) I am very grateful to all contributors for reading my book so closely and for devoting time and intellectual energy to thinking about the pros and cons of multi-dimensional consequentialism. (shrink)

A first-order theory T has the Independence Property provided deduction of a statement of type (quantifiers) (P -> (P1 or P2 or .. or Pn)) in T implies that (quantifiers) (P -> Pi) can be deduced in T for some i, 1 <= i <= n). Variants of this property have been noticed for some time in logic programming and in linear programming. We show that a first-order theory has the Independence Property for the class of basic formulas (...) provided it can be axiomatized with Horn sentences. The existence of free models is a useful intermediate result. The independence Property is also a tool to decide that a sentence cannot be deduced. We illustrate this with the case of the classical Caratheodory theorem for Pasch-Peano geometries. (shrink)

Social theory is the theoretical core of the social sciences, clearly distinguishable from political theory and cultural analysis. This book offers a unique overview of the development of social theory from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the present day. Spanning the literature in English, French and German, it provides an excellent background to the most important social theorists and theories in contemporary sociological thought, with crisp summaries of the main books, arguments (...) and controversies. It also deals with newly emerging schools from rational choice to symbolic interactionism, with new ambitious approaches, structuralism and antistructuralism, critical revisions of modernization theory, feminism and neopragmatism. Written by two of the world's leading sociologists and based on their extensive academic teaching, this unrivalled work is ideal both for students in the social sciences and humanities and for anyone interested in contemporary theoretical debates. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Qualitative Hedonism Objections to Mill's Qualitative Hedonism: Internal Inconsistency and Value Pluralism The Judgment of Competent Agents: Self‐Development and Value Measurement Self‐Development and Virtue Ethics Further Reading.

This paper argues that there is a heretofore unresolved tension between truthmaker-style metaphysics and a plausible version of Naturalism. At the turn of the century, George Molnar proposed four prima facie plausible principles for a realist metaphysics in order to expose truthmaker theory’s incapacity to find truthmakers for negative truths. I marshal the current plethora of attempted solutions to the problem into a crisp trilemma. Those who solve it claim that Molnar’s tetrad is consistent; those who dissolve it (...) do away with the requirement that every truth needs a truthmaker; and those who absolve it embrace a negative ontology. I argue that one is forced to absolve the problem: all other avenues undermine the truthmaker principle itself. Absolving the problem, however, does not sit well with a version of Naturalism that most would accept. We are drawn to a simple dilemma: either embrace a negative ontology, or reject truthmaker-style metaphysics. (shrink)

In this article, I attempt to resuscitate the perennially unfashionable distinctive feeling theory of pleasure (and pain), according to which for an experience to be pleasant (or unpleasant) is just for it to involve or contain a distinctive kind of feeling. I do this in two ways. First, by offering powerful new arguments against its two chief rivals: attitude theories, on the one hand, and the phenomenological theories of Roger Crisp, Shelly Kagan, and Aaron Smuts, on the other. (...) Second, by showing how it can answer two important objections that have been made to it. First, the famous worry that there is no felt similarity to all pleasant (or unpleasant) experiences (sometimes called ‘the heterogeneity objection’). Second, what I call ‘Findlay’s objection’, the claim that it cannot explain the nature of our attraction to pleasure and aversion to pain. (shrink)

Social theory is the theoretical core of the social sciences, clearly distinguishable from political theory and cultural analysis. This book offers a unique overview of the development of social theory from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the present day. Spanning the literature in English, French and German, it provides an excellent background to the most important social theorists and theories in contemporary sociological thought, with crisp summaries of the main books, arguments (...) and controversies. It also deals with newly emerging schools from rational choice to symbolic interactionism, with new ambitious approaches, structuralism and antistructuralism, critical revisions of modernization theory, feminism and neopragmatism. Written by two of the world's leading sociologists and based on their extensive academic teaching, this unrivalled work is ideal both for students in the social sciences and humanities and for anyone interested in contemporary theoretical debates. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should replace the common classification of theories of welfare into the categories of hedonism, desire theories, and objective list theories. The tripartite classification is objectionable because it is unduly narrow and it is confusing: it excludes theories of welfare that are worthy of discussion, and it obscures important distinctions. In its place, the paper proposes two independent classifications corresponding to a distinction emphasised by Roger Crisp: a four-category classification of enumerative theories (about which items (...) constitute welfare), and a four-category classification of explanatory theories (about why these items constitute welfare). (shrink)

Social theory is a crucial resource for the social sciences. It provides rich insights into how human beings think and act and how contemporary social life is constructed. But often the key ideas of social theorists are expressed in highly technical and difficult language that can hide more than it reveals. The new edition of this popular book continues to cut to the core of what social theory is about. Covering key themes from the classical thinkers onwards, including (...) Marxism, post-structuralism, phenomenology, feminism and more, the second edition features a new chapter on Actor-Network Theory and enhanced discussion of postcolonial theory. Wide ranging in scope and coverage, the book is concise in presentation and free from jargon. Showing why social theory matters, and why it is of far-reaching social and political importance, the book is ideal for readers seeking a clear, crisp mapping of a complex but very rewarding area. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1997, is an introductory overview of decision theory. It is completely non-technical, without a single formula in the book. Written in a crisp and clear style it succinctly covers the full range of philosophical issues of rationality and decision theory, including game theory, social choice theory, prisoner's dilemma and much else. The book aims to expand the scope and enrich the foundations of decision theory. By addressing such issues as (...) ambivalence, inner conflict, and the constraints imposed upon us by our attachments to others, Frederic Schick reveals that our thinking is often more subtle than standard theories of rationality allow. Only a theory that respects that subtlety can illumine what is otherwise puzzling. The book contains many examples drawn from history and literature dealing with subjects such as love, war, friendship, and crime. (shrink)

Abstract: We propose a view of vagueness as a semantic property of names and predicates. All entities are crisp, on this semantic view, but there are, for each vague name, multiple portions of reality that are equally good candidates for being its referent, and, for each vague predicate, multiple classes of objects that are equally good candidates for being its extension. We provide a new formulation of these ideas in terms of a theory of granular partitions. We show (...) that this theory provides a general framework within which we can understand the relation between vague terms and concepts and the corresponding crisp portions of reality. We also sketch how it might be possible to formulate within this framework a theory of vagueness which dispenses with the notion of truth-value gaps and other artifacts of more familiar approaches. Central to our approach is the idea that judgments about reality involve in every case (1) a separation of reality into foreground and background of attention and (2) the feature of granularity. On this basis we attempt to show that even vague judgments made in naturally occurring contexts are not marked by truth-value indeterminacy. We distinguish, in addition to crisp granular partitions, also vague partitions, and reference partitions, and we explain the role of the latter in the context of judgments that involve vagueness. We conclude by showing how reference partitions provide an effective means by which judging subjects are able to temper the vagueness of their judgments by means of approximations. (shrink)

Some philosophers, such as Roger Crisp and Alastair Norcross, have recently argued that the traditional moral categories of wrongness, permissibility and obligation should be avoided when doing ethical theory. I argue that even if morality does not itself provide reasons for action, the moral categories nevertheless have a central role to play in ethical theory: they allow us to make crucial judgements about how to feel about, and react to, agents who behave in anti‐social ways, and they (...) help motivate us to act altruistically. (shrink)

Many philosophers with hedonistic sympathies (e.g., Mill, Sidgwick, Sumner, Feldman, Crisp, Heathwood, and Bradley) have claimed that well-being is necessarily experiential. Kagan once claimed something slightly different, saying that, although unexperienced bodily events can directly impact a person’s well-being, it is nonetheless true that any change in a person’s well-being must involve a change in her (i.e., either in her mind or in her body). Kagan elaborated by saying that a person’s well-being cannot float freely of her such that (...) it is affected by events that do not affect her (Kagan 1992, 169–189). These two claims—that well-being is necessarily experiential and that changes in well-being must involve changes in the person—are two different ways of specifying the general intuition that a person’s well-being must be strongly tied to her. This general intuition imposes an adequacy constraint on welfare theorizing: To be adequate, a welfare theory cannot allow that someone can be directly benefited by events that are not strongly tied to her. Call this the strong-tie requirement. The strong-tie requirement is easily satisfied by welfare hedonism, but it poses problems for desire-fulfillment welfare theories and objective-list welfare theories. Though a great deal has been written about desire-fulfillment welfare theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement, not as much has been written about objective-list welfare theories in relation to the strong-tie requirement. This paper argues that objective-list welfare theories can satisfy the strong-tie requirement, though probably only if they take a perfectionist form, as opposed to a brute-list form. (shrink)

The traditional soft set is a mapping from a parameter set to family of all crisp subsets of a universe. Molodtsov introduced the soft set as a generalized tool for modelling complex systems involving uncertain or not clearly defined objects. In this paper, the notion of neutrosophic soft set is reanalysed. The novel theory is a combination of neutrosophic set theory and soft set theory. The complement, “and”, “or”, intersection and union operations are defined on the (...) neutrosophic soft sets. The neutrosophic soft relations accompanied with their compositions are also defined. The basic properties of the neutrosophic soft sets, neutrosophic soft relations and neutrosophic soft compositions are also discussed. (shrink)

"Robert Audi's magisterial "The Good in the Right" offers the most comprehensive and developed account of rational ethical intuitionism to date."--Roger Crisp, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford "This is an excellent book.

Brentano and his students were the first to wrestle an Aristotelian perceptual concept, intentionality, into the modern metaphysics of mind. This dissertation recovers theories of Franz Brentano , Kazimierz Twardowski , and Edmund Husserl by appreciating each as an unique attempt to make a modern home for the ancient doctrine of "aboutness." The dissertation corrects a broad range of contemporary misunderstandings and criticisms of Brentano School philosophy, in particular one advanced by Martin Heidegger . ;Brentano's Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (...) is marked by deep tensions between the doctrine of intentional inexistence and its Comtean positivism; Brentano treated mental contents as Comtean phenomena. Understanding physical phenomena as facts presented by sensations, and as syntactic building-blocks for higher-order mental phenomena, I reject misinterpretations of Brentano as either anti-reductionist or Immanentist. The unstable Brentanian account of intentionality was inherited by his student Twardowski. On the Content and Object of Presentations hoped to shore up Brentano's position with a crisp distinction of mental contents from worldly objects; Twardowski was among the first to attempt to integrate intentionality with a modern representationalism. The result was subjective mental content through which objects in the extra-conscious world are represented, a watershed in the history of representationalisms. Twardowski treated the representational relation as resemblance and mental contents as " quasi pictures," but Twardowski was among the first distinctly 20th Century representationalists, those who treat mental content as extra-conscious. Husserl's solution to Brentano's problem rejected the positivistic phenomena of his teacher and criticized the quasi-pictures of his classmate. The heart of the Logical Investigations account of consciousness is a distinction between two kinds of mental content. The intentional objects of the world at large are our mental contents , the very things that remain fixed while our mental contents fluctuate. Understanding this dynamic relation between two kinds of mental content, I reject readings of the Investigations which treat ideal content as either Fregean or Aristotelian. The recovery of Husserl's notion of ideality, one strategy amongst several in attempts to integrate intentionality with modern metaphysics, abets a defense of early Husserlian phenomenology from one of its most powerful critics. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher is a self-described working philosopher whose many works uniquely combine the deep epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical themes of classical American pragmatism and idealism in the tradition of Peirce and Royce, with crisp logico-analytic techniques in the tradition of Quine and Sellars. Kant and the Reach of Reason, a collection of nine essays spanning three decades, shows that Rescher is a firstrate Kant scholar as well.

Let us call a sentential context semantically transparent if and only if all synonymous expressions are substitutable for one another in it salva veritate. A sentential context is semantically opaque if and only if it is not semantically transparent. Nathan Salmon has boldly advanced a refreshingly crisp theory according to which belief contexts are semantically transparent.1 If he is right, belief contexts are much better behaved than widely suspected.2 Impressive as it is, I do not believe that Salmon's (...) theory is completely satisfactory. I shall not try to refute his theory, however. My aim is more modest. It is to show that his theory, in conjunction with a number of auxiliary but important claims he makes to buttress the theory, seems to lead to semantic opacity of belief contexts. (shrink)

복지 이론으로서의 쾌락주의는 삶을 살아가는 당사자 자신에게 있어서 삶을 좋게 만드 는 것은 그가 삶에서 경험하는 쾌락이라는 주장이다. 따라서 쾌락주의에 따르면 복지 가치 가 높은 삶은 고통보다 쾌락이 더 많은 삶이다. 쾌락주의에 대해 제기되는 대표적인 반론 중 하나인 무가치한 쾌락으로부터의 반론은 무가치한 쾌락들로 점철된 삶을 예로 들어 쾌 락주의를 논박하고자 한다. 이 글은 우선 여러 종류의 쾌락주의 이론이 쾌락에 대한 적절 한 설명을 제공하는지 비판적으로 검토한다. 그 후 쾌락주의 이론 중 가장 그럴듯한 설명 을 제시하는 것으로 보이는 로저 크리스프(Roger (...) class='Hi'>Crisp)의 쾌조 이론(hedonic tone theory)과 그에 의거한 쾌락주의 방어 논변을 검토한다. 논자는 크리스프의 쾌조 이론이 좋은 삶과 쾌락의 관계에 관해 어느 정도 설득력 있는 설명을 제시하지만 궁극적으로 쾌조 이론에 근거한 “쾌락주의적” 방어 논변은 성공하지 못한다고 주장한다. (shrink)

The theory of plithogeny developed by Smarandache is described as a more generalized form of representing sets of different nature such as crisp, fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic. Plithogenic set comprises degree of appurtenance and contradiction degree with respect only to the dominant attribute. This paper introduces extended plithogenic sets comprising degrees of appurtenance and contradiction with respect to both dominant and recessive attributes. The extension of the 5-tuple Plithogenic sets to a 7- tuple plithogenic sets helps in developing (...) a more comprehensive kind of Plithogenic sociogram. The newly developed plithogenic sets and its implications in Plithogenic sociogram is validated by the decision making problem on food processing industries. The obtained results using extended plithogenic sets are more promising in comparison to the conventional plithogenic sets. The proposed kind of plithogenic sets will benefit the decision makers to make optimal decisions based on both optimistic and pessimistic approaches. (shrink)

An approach to testing theories describing a multiverse, that has gained interest of late, involves comparing theory-generated probability distributions over observables with their experimentally measured values. It is likely that such distributions, were we indeed able to calculate them unambiguously, will assign low probabilities to any such experimental measurements. An alternative to thereby rejecting these theories, is to conditionalize the distributions involved by restricting attention to domains of the multiverse in which we might arise. In order to elicit a (...) crisp prediction, however, one needs to make a further assumption about how typical we are of the chosen domains. In this paper, we investigate interactions between the spectra of available assumptions regarding both conditionalization and typicality, and draw out the effects of these interactions in a concrete setting; namely, on predictions of the total number of species that contribute significantly to dark matter. In particular, for each conditionalization scheme studied, we analyze how correlations between densities of different dark matter species affect the prediction, and explicate the effects of assumptions regarding typicality. We find that the effects of correlations can depend on the conditionalization scheme, and that in each case atypicality can significantly change the prediction. In doing so, we demonstrate the existence of overlaps in the predictions of different "frameworks" consisting of conjunctions of theory, conditionalization scheme and typicality assumption. This conclusion highlights the acute challenges involved in using such tests to identify a preferred framework that aims to describe our observational situation in a multiverse. (shrink)

Recently, research on uncertainty modeling is progressing rapidly and many essential and breakthrough stud ies have already been done. There are various ways such as fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic sets to handle these uncertainties. Although these concepts can handle incomplete information in various real-world issues, they cannot address all types of uncertainty such as indeterminate and inconsistent information. Also, plithogenic sets as a generalization of crisp, fuzzy, intuitionistic fuzzy, and neutrosophic sets, which is a set whose elements are characterized (...) by many attributes’ values. In this paper, our aim is to demonstrate and review the history of fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic sets. For this purpose, we divided the paper as: section 1. History of Fuzzy Sets, section 2. History of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets and section 3. History of Neutrosophic Theories and Applications, section 4. History of Plithogenic Sets. (shrink)

Against the reason holists (e.g. Dancy 2014), it has been contended by many reason atomists that while many features might well change their reason statuses or valences in different contexts in the way suggested by reason holists, they are merely secondary rather than primary reasons. In these atomists’ scheme of things, there are features that function as primary reasons whose reason statuses remain invariant across contexts. Moreover, these features provide the ultimate source of explanations for why some features, qua secondary (...) reasons, are variable in their reason statuses. Against the background of reason holism, this two-level picture of moral reason has been highly influential as an alternative theory of how moral reasons behave, and has been championed by several eminent philosophers such as Roger Crisp, Brad Hooker, David McNaughton and Piers Rawling. Call this theory ‘primary reason atomism’ (or PRA). Since its advancement, it has been met with lots of challenges, yet most, if not all, of these challenges remain unaddressed, insofar as I could see. This article will pick up the slack, and argues that none of its existing powerful criticisms works that can be derived from Swanton’s target-center view of the virtues, Stangl’s virtue variabilism, Dancy’s bottom-up holism, and coverage challenge, McKeever & Ridge, and Väyrynen’s double-counting objection, and Scanlon’s buck-passing account of values. This may not prove PRA to be right, but at least shows PRA to be a serious contender for the right theory of how moral reason behaves. (shrink)