This paper traces the development of parental rights to accept or to refuse treatment for a defective newborn infant in the United Kingdom and in the United States of America; its main purpose is to explore the common trends from which an acceptable policy may be derived. It is probable that the British law on parental decision-making in respect of infants suffering from Down's syndrome is to be found in the civil case of In Re B rather than in the (...) criminal case of R v Arthur. United States court decisions are strongly influenced by constitutional law and reflect the right to personal privacy. The position on each side of the Atlantic seems very similar but this similarity includes a sense of uncertainty as to legal responsibility. There is a case for agreed guidelines and a suggested format is offered for consideration. (shrink)

Aspects of Mind contains previously unpublished manuscript material by Gilbert Ryle along with notes taken by the editor, Rene Meyer, at lectures given by Ryle on the philosophy of mind in 1964. Gilbert Ryle, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1945 until 1967, had a decisive influence on contemporary philosophy. His Concept of Mind (1949) not only put a methodological edge in a most readable way to what has become known as Analytical Philosophy, but it (...) also stimulated interest in the philosophy of mind as a pivotal part of philosophy as a whole. A second important influence derives from his reorganization of philosophical studies at Oxford after the war which made it, for several years, one of the liveliest philosophical centres in the world. Ryle's interest covered almost the entire field of philosophy. He also made substantial contributions to the history of philosophy, notably on Plato, Locke, Hume, Husserl and Heidegger. Gilbert Ryle died in October 1976. The book also includes two tributes to Ryle; one from John Mabbott, a close friend, on Ryle the man, and one from David Gallop, an ex-student, on Ryle the Philosopher. A chapter entitled "Philosophy, Logical Geography and Dilemmas" by Rene Meyer provides a perspective on Ryle's philosophy. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

A Hilbert-style version of an implicational logic can be represented by a set of axiom schemes and modus ponens or by the corresponding axioms, modus ponens and substitution. Certain logics, for example the intuitionistic implicational logic, can also be represented by axioms and the rule of condensed detachment, which combines modus ponens with a minimal form of substitution. Such logics, for example intuitionistic implicational logic, are said to be D-complete. For certain weaker logics, the version based on condensed detachment and (...) axioms (the condensed version of the logic) is weaker than the original. In this paper we prove that the relevant logic T→, and any logic of which this is a sublogic, is D-complete. (shrink)

In this article I describe the theoretical underpinnings of 20th-century British philosopher W. D. Ross's approach to linking deontological and teleological decision making. I attempt to fill in what Ross left on the whole unanswered, that is, how to use his duties to resolve dilemmas. A case study in journalism demonstrates how to apply the theory. I conclude with an analysis of what I take to be the strengths and weaknesses in Ross's theory.

The goal of this article is to try to resolve two key problems in the duty-based approach of W. D. Ross: the source of principles and a process for moving from prima facie to actual duty. I use a naturalistic explanation for the former and a nine-step method for making concrete ethical decisions as they could be applied to journalism. Consistent with Ross's position, the process is complicated, particularly in tougher problems, and it cannot guarantee correct choices. Again consistent with (...) Ross, such complexity and uncertainty speak in the method's favor, given the difficulty—factual, motivational, and organizational—of ethics problems and decision making. (shrink)

I defend a strong version of the Kantian claim that actions done solely from duty have moral worth by (1) considering pure cases of acting from duty, (2) showing that love and sympathy, unlike a sense of duty, can often lead us to do the wrong thing, (3) carefully distinguishing moral from non-moral virtues, and (4) by distinguishing pathological sympathy from practical sympathy. Not only is acting purely from a sense of duty superior to acting from love and sympathetic feelings, (...) but the cold-heartedness found in Kant’s examples should be thought of as a virtue rather than a vice. (shrink)

Mother and Fetus: Rights in Conflict A. INTRODUCTION After fertilization of the female egg (ovum) with male sperm the resulting zygote may implant ...

D. W. Peetz; III—Falsification in Science, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 June 1969, Pages 17–31, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristo.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:76 AN UNNOTICED ERROR IN HUME'S TREATISE "...the conformity between love and hatred in the agreeableness of their sensation makes them always be excited by the same objects..." Treatise, Book II, Part II, Sec. X. This passage from Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is taken from the first edition of 1739. It can also be found in the Everyman Edition, the editions of Selby-Bigge Mossner, and Green and (...) Grosse, without editorial comment of any kind. Yet it contains a glaring and obvious error. The most superficial reading of Book II will convince one that it is love and pride that conform in the agreeableness of their sensation they are both indirect passions that aire pleasant in feeling. On the other hand, humility and hatred share in being disagree able or unpleasant impressions. This might have been a printer's error, or Hume's own mistake, and the reason for it is not hard to find. This part of Book II was called "Of love and hatred" ; the expression "love and hatred" recurs several times throughout the whole. In ei»ther the writing of the manuscript or the type setting of the text, a habit was established. Habit, which Hume himself used to explain so much else, must here be cited as the explanation of this slip. What is more interesting is the reason why such an obvious error has gone so long unnoticed. Here an ambiguity in Hume's use of the word "object" should be noticed. It is sometimes used simply as a synonym for "thing" and this is the usage in "excited by the same objects". Hume is merely saying that love and pride have the same sorts of cause. When this cause is found in oneself it leads to pride and when in another it leads to love. This of course is connected with the fact that both these passions are aggreeable or pleasant in sensation. 77 "Object" also has a special technical use in Book II when it refers to the person towards whom the passion is directed, as in "the object of the passion". Now love and hatred do have a similar sort of object, i.e. another person, whereas the object of pride and humility is, according to Hume, always oneself. In this usage, the object of a passion is carefully distinguished by Hume from its cause. It is possible that a careless and superficial reading of this passage might lead one to think that Hume meant to say that love and hatred agree in having the same sort of object, i.e. another person. Such inattention is to be deplored, but after all, until very recently, such inattention was typical of the attitude of philosophers towards Book II 2 as a whole. D. W. D. Owen University of Stirling 1.See for instance the previous paragraph; "I have suppos'd all along, that the passions of love and pride, and those of humility and hatred are similar in their sensations, and that the two former are always agreeable, and the two latter painful." 2.Thanks are due to Mr. Roland Hall for checking the first edition on my behalf.... (shrink)

Due to natural selection pressure, certain aspects of memory may have been selected to give humans a survival advantage. Research has demonstrated that processing information for survival relevance leads to better item memory (i.e., the content of information) compared to control conditions. The current study investigates the effects of survival processing on context memory (i.e., memory for peripheral episodic details) and item memory to better understand when the survival processing memory advantage emerges. In this study, participants viewed objects in either (...) a plausible color, for example a red apple, or in an implausible color, such as a green pie. We chose this color plausibility manipulation because color is a detail that conveys information about the fitness of an item. After studying items in either a survival or moving (control) condition, participants made item memory judgments (did you see this item before?), and two context memory judgments: color context (in which color did you see this item?), and source context (in which condition did you see this item?). Results indicated better item memory for materials processed in the survival relative to moving condition. Critically, for color context there was a condition by plausibility interaction, where memory was best for plausibly colored items in the survival processing condition. There was no difference, however, in source context memory between the survival and moving conditions. These results suggest the survival processing memory advantage extends to some contextual details, but only those details that tap into the survival utility of items, such as color. (shrink)

Joshua Greene and Peter Singer argue, on the basis of empirical evidence, that deontological moral judgments result from emotional reactions while dispassionate reasoning leads to consequentialist judgments. Given that there are good reasons to doubt these emotionally driven intuitions, they argue that we should reject Kantian ethics. I argue that the evidence does not support the claim that consequentialism is inherently more reason-based or less emotion-based than Kantian ethics. This is partly because the experiments employ a functional definition of ‘deontological’ (...) that is so broad as to include any non-consequentialist theory, including virtue ethics, divine command theory, and even rule-utilitarianism. Thus the experiments failed to capture the reasons behind the judgments. Also, the results of the experiments are partly due to the extensive use of moral dilemmas like the footbridge version of the trolley scenario. The options in these dilemmas involve different levels of moral thinking. The consequ.. (shrink)

Recently, empirically minded philosophers have employed evidence of widespread, fundamental moral disagreement to argue against moral realism. I argue that the empirical evidence does not refute realism because the disagreement is consistent with certain pluralistic versions of moral realism that posit a set of pro tanto normative principles. Others have appealed to pluralism in defense of moral realism but have used pluralism to attack the empirically based approach to ethical theory. Although I argue that the empirical argument against moral realism (...) fails, I defend the approach and suggest better ways that (pluralist) moral realism could be tested empirically. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroenhancement involves the use of medical interventions to improve normal cognitive functioning such as memory, focus, concentration, or willpower. In this paper I give a Kantian argument defending the use of CNE in science, scholarly research, and creative fields. Kant’s universal law formulation of the categorical imperative shows why enhancement is morally wrong in the familiar contexts of sports or competitive games. This argument, however, does not apply to the use of CNE in higher education, scholarly or scientific research, (...) or creative endeavors such as visual art, fiction or poetry, or musical composition. This is because performance in these areas is embedded within practices that differ in morally significant ways from competitive practices. This important difference provides good reason to think that there is nothing morally wrong with the use of CNE in these areas. My approach is not simply to assume a full-fledged Kantian ethical theory and apply it straight away to the enhancement issue but to establish a reflective equilibrium between our moral intuitions, moral principles that support those intuitions, and the nature of the practices involved. (shrink)

D W Hamlyn; How Does Knowledge Start? A Reply to Pamela Moore, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 137, https://doi.org/1.

The book attempts, in as comprehensive a way as possible, to make clear the central issues for the theory of knowledge, so as to provide a framework for that subject and also to indicate something of the way in which, as the author believes, the issues should be faced.

In deriving his moral code, Hobbes does not appeal to any mind-independent good, natural human telos, or innate human sympathies. Instead he assumes a subjectivist theory of value and an egoistic theory of human motivation. Some critics, however, doubt that his laws of nature can be constructed from such scant material. Hobbes ultimately justifies the acceptance of moral laws by the fact that they promote self-preservation. But, as Hobbes himself acknowledges, not everyone prefers survival over natural liberty. In this essay (...) I show that Hobbes can argue that the desire for self-preservation is rationally required by modifying his subjectivist theory of the good to equate what is good for an agent only with the satisfaction of desires (for her own life) that she has at the time that they are satisfied. It is thus irrational to prefer postmortem glory over survival since an agent must be alive for glory to have any value for her. (shrink)

Morally speaking, is abortion murder? This is what I am calling the ‘abortion problem’. I claim that neither pro-life nor pro-choice advocates have the correct solution; that the correct solution is instead one considered correct by relatively few people. But if this solution really is correct, then why, after years of intense debate, is this solution not more widely accepted? Many, no doubt, are precluded from accepting it by religious dogma. But others, I think, fail to arrive at a correct (...) solution because they have been approaching the problem from the wrong theoretical framework. Or they have been approaching it without any theoretical framework at all. That is, they have no theoretical framework beyond that of merely examining their moral intuitions and, if anything is clear so far from the abortion debate, it is that intuitions alone, which differ radically from person to person, are not sufficient to solve the problem. In short: one is unlikely to arrive at the correct solution unless one starts from a sound theoretical framework. I shall, in what follows, sketch what I take to be a sound theoretical framework. Then I shall try to show what solution to the abortion problem follows from it. (shrink)

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