We propose Rhythmic Relating for autism: a system of supports for friends, therapists, parents, and educators; a system which aims to augment bidirectional communication and complement existing therapeutic approaches. We begin by summarizing the developmental significance of social timing and the social-motor-synchrony challenges observed in early autism. Meta-analyses conclude the early primacy of such challenges, yet cite the lack of focused therapies. We identify core relational parameters in support of social-motor-synchrony and systematize these using the communicative musicality constructs: pulse; quality; (...) and narrative. Rhythmic Relating aims to augment the clarity, contiguity, and pulse-beat of spontaneous behavior by recruiting rhythmic supports and relatable vitality; facilitating the predictive flow and just-ahead-in-time planning needed for good-enough social timing. From here, we describe possibilities for playful therapeutic interaction, small-step co-regulation, and layered sensorimotor integration. Lastly, we include several clinical case examples demonstrating the use of Rhythmic Relating within four different therapeutic approaches. These clinical case examples are introduced here and several more are included in the Supplementary Material. A suite of pilot intervention studies is proposed to assess the efficacy of combining Rhythmic Relating with different therapeutic approaches in playful work with individuals with autism. Further experimental hypotheses are outlined, designed to clarify the significance of certain key features of the Rhythmic Relating approach. (shrink)

Youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits showed reduced amygdala responses to fearful expressions under low attentional load but no indications of increased recruitment of regions implicated in top- down attentional control. These findings suggest that the emotional deficit observed in youths with disruptive behavior disorders and psychopathic traits is primary and not secondary to increased top- down attention to nonemotional stimulus features.

Metaphors are found all throughout science: in published papers, working hypotheses, policy documents, lecture slides, grant proposals, and press releases. They serve different functions, but perhaps most striking is the way they enable understanding, of a theory, phenomenon, or idea. In this paper, we leverage recent advances on the nature of metaphor and the nature of understanding to explore how they accomplish this feat. We attempt to shift the focus away from the epistemic value of the content of metaphors, to (...) the epistemic value of the metaphor’s consequences. Many famous scientific metaphors are epistemically good, not primarily because of what they say about the world, but because of how they cause us to think. Specifically, metaphors increase understanding either by improving our sets of representations, or by making it easier for us to encode and process data about complex subjects by changing how we are disposed to conceptualize those subjects. This view hints towards new positions concerning testimonial understanding, factivity, abilities, discovery via metaphor, and the relation between metaphors and models. (shrink)

The connection between early yogācāras, or practitioners of yoga, and later Yogācāra-vijñānavāda philosophy has long preoccupied scholars. But these connections remain obscure. This article suggests that a text that has received little attention in modern scholarship, the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, may shed light on aspects of early yogācāra contemplative cultures that gave rise to some of the formative dynamics of Yogācāra-vijñānavāda thought. I show how traditional Buddhist meditative practice and engagement with Abhidharma theoretics come together in the Saddharmasmṛtyuasthānasūtra to produce a novel (...) theory of mind that mirrors many of the philosophical problematics that early and late Yogācāra-vijñānavādins confronted and attempted to work out in śāstric detail. (shrink)

The field of artificial intelligence (AI) ethics has exploded in recent years, with countless academics, organizations, and influencers rushing to consider how AI technology can be developed and im...

This introduction to the special issue ‘Foucault Before the Collège de France’ surveys Foucault’s work in the first part of his career. While there is a familiar chronology to the books he published in the 1960s – from History of Madness to The Archaeology of Knowledge – the story can be developed in relation to his articles, his translations, his early publications and manuscripts, and his teaching. Looking at the programme of posthumous publication of many of his courses and unfinished (...) manuscripts, this introduction discusses key themes, and introduces the papers of the special issue which analyse these texts in detail. It concludes with some general thoughts about what these hitherto neglected or hidden sources tell us about the work of Foucault. Although it adds some cautions about their use, we believe the texts and lectures analysed in this issue and others from the period before the Collège de France add valuable insights into our understanding of Foucault’s intellectual development, his interests and plans, and his enduring influence on a variety of fields in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

The emergence of ethical concerns surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) has led to an explosion of high-level ethical principles being published by a wide range of public and private organizations. However, there is a need to consider how AI developers can be practically assisted to anticipate, identify and address ethical issues regarding AI technologies. This is particularly important in the development of AI intended for healthcare settings, where applications will often interact directly with patients in various states of vulnerability. In this (...) paper, we propose that an ‘embedded ethics’ approach, in which ethicists and developers together address ethical issues via an iterative and continuous process from the outset of development, could be an effective means of integrating robust ethical considerations into the practical development of medical AI. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill regards economics as an inexact and separate science which employs a deductive method. This paper analyzes and restates Mill's views and considers whether they help one to understand philosophical peculiarities of contemporary microeconomic theory. The author concludes that it is philosophically enlightening to interpret microeconomics as an inexact and separate science, but that Mill's notion of a deductive method has only a little to contribute.

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into critical domains such as healthcare holds immense promise. Nevertheless, significant challenges must be addressed to avoid harm, promote the well-being of individuals and societies, and ensure ethically sound and socially just technology development. Innovative approaches like Embedded Ethics, which refers to integrating ethics and social science into technology development based on interdisciplinary collaboration, are emerging to address issues of bias, transparency, misrepresentation, and more. This paper aims to develop this approach further to enable future projects (...) to effectively deploy it. Based on the practical experience of using ethics and social science methodology in interdisciplinary AI-related healthcare consortia, this paper presents several methods that have proven helpful for embedding ethical and social science analysis and inquiry. They include (1) stakeholder analyses, (2) literature reviews, (3) ethnographic approaches, (4) peer-to-peer interviews, (5) focus groups, (6) interviews with affected groups and external stakeholders, (7) bias analyses, (8) workshops, and (9) interdisciplinary results dissemination. We believe that applying Embedded Ethics offers a pathway to stimulate reflexivity, proactively anticipate social and ethical concerns, and foster interdisciplinary inquiry into such concerns at every stage of technology development. This approach can help shape responsible, inclusive, and ethically aware technology innovation in healthcare and beyond. (shrink)

Edward Stuart Russell (1887–1954) was a central figure in the philosophy of biology during the first half of the twentieth century. Although he worked as a government fisheries scientist for much of his life, he still managed to establish himself as one of the most prominent biological theorists of his time. The views he developed, which were antireductionistic, organism-centred, and teleological, challenged the prevailing mechanistic orthodoxy. His book 'The Interpretation of Development and Heredity' (1930) provides one of themost incisive (...) critiques of the chromosomal theory of the gene ever published, and it has acquired a renewed relevance in light of recent empirical findings. Russell’s interest in the theoretical problems of biology is as much historical as philosophical, and many of his works, particularly his first book 'Form and Function' (1916), are still regarded today as landmark contributions to the history of biological thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2003) 308-311 [Access article in PDF] Joseph Hamburger. John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xx + 239. Cloth, $35.00. C. L. Ten, editor. Mill's Moral, Political and Legal Philosophy. Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1999. Pp. xxiii + 498. Cloth, $180.00. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty is commonly viewed as the classic defense of (...) individual liberty, and Mill himself as the grandfather of modern liberalism. In John Stuart Mill on Liberty and Control Joseph Hamburger seeks to dislodge this orthodox interpretation [End Page 308] of Mill. As the title of the work suggests, Hamburger, who died shortly before this work came to press, seeks to convince the reader that a proper understanding of Mill's account of individual liberty needs to be nuanced by an appreciation of those substantial controls that Mill was willing to place upon individuals.Hamburger suggests that the association of Mill with modern liberalism results from viewing the arguments presented in On Liberty in isolation from the context in which they were written. Hamburger argues that Mill's real purpose in writing On Liberty is neither self-evident nor is it one that is easily assimilated to modern libertarian ideals. Hamburger interprets "Mill as making an esoteric argument in On Liberty" (xvii). There are two additional pieces that Hamburger claims one needs in order to properly decipher the puzzle, and thus grasp the true import of Mill's claims concerning liberty. First, Hamburger argues that Mill's desire to bring about cultural reform was dependent upon his rejection of Christianity. Mill's unpublished writings reveal that he was far more antagonistic to the influence of Christian religion than is often recognized. Hamburger argues that for Mill initiating true moral reform depended upon overcoming the old social order of which Christianity was a primary constituent. In order for this to occur, one needed "to establish liberty for those who would implement his plan for moral reformation" (86). Second, Hamburger argues that we must also grasp Mill's view of history if we are to properly understand his project of moral reform and the place of On Liberty within this project. Hamburger claims that Mill's vision of history was strongly influenced by thinkers such as Comte and St. Simon. From them, Mill adopted the view that societies alternate between transitional and natural states, and that the values that are applicable in these states are quite different. Hamburger claims that "Mill easily recognized his own age as being transitional," and that this influences all of his arguments in On Liberty (111).Putting the above together, Hamburger concludes that Mill's arguments are specifically directed toward securing the liberty of those who would combat the influence of Christianity and the old moral order, and that "the liberty recommended in On Liberty was especially valued because it would hasten the undermining of old doctrines and institutions which occurred in transitional periods" (212). Hamburger argues that the liberty that Mill meant to secure in this work was not intended to apply equally to all persons or in all periods. Thus, Hamburger argues that Mill was quite willing to advocate strong forms of social control in other contexts.The latter claim, which Hamburger argues provides a more coherent interpretation of On Liberty, does not necessarily follow from Mill's view of religion and history. Here, I think there is room for two distinct judgments regarding Hamburger's achievement in this book. Hamburger has undoubtedly provided a great service in examining the often neglected areas of Mill's corpus and their relevance to his more prominent works. Philosophers who view On Liberty as an isolated piece of argument, or at best only consider it in relation to Mill's Utilitarianism, thus would profit much from reading this work. I am less convinced, however, of Hamburger's claim that heeding these aspects of Mill's thought will lead one to form a radically different understanding of Mill's claims concerning... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionStuart J. Youngner (bio), Laura A. Siminoff (bio), and Renie Schapiro (bio)This issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (KIEJ) centers on a piece of empirical research. The motivation behind the study of Laura Siminoff, Christopher Burant, and Stuart Youngner (2004) was to find out more about what the general public understands and believes about when a person is dead. More specifically, the study tried to determine (...) how members of the public define death, especially their acceptance and interpretation of the medical concept of "brain death," and their attitudes toward the so-called "dead donor rule," an informal but powerful social and legal norm insisting that the taking of organs for transplantation not cause the death of the source of those organs.As the demand for organs increases and the waiting list grows, the United States has explored multiple ways to expand the pool of potential donors. One approach has been to gerrymander (coherently or not) the line between life and death to shift patients who are extremely compromised but traditionally considered to be in the living category into the dead category. In this way, the dead donor rule remains technically intact. This reasoning is explicit in the report of the Harvard Medical School Ad Hoc Committee (1968) that "introduced" "brain death" to the American culture. Since then, other efforts to redraw the line have been proposed and rejected.One alternative to gerrymandering is to consider under what conditions, if any, it is morally acceptable to violate the dead donor rule. Some would argue that this alternative is the more "honest" approach. Rather than sidestepping moral problems by calling people dead, it brings the moral problems to the surface where the necessity of sticking to the rule can be considered on its own merits. However, when the Journal of the American Medical Association printed a position paper that proposed making anencepahlic newborns an exception to the dead donor rule, along with arguments about why this was acceptable, the outcry was so great that the proposal was retracted (AMA 1995).Clearly, our society has identified organ transplantation as a priority, although two papers in this volume (those by Courtney Campbell and by Megan Crowley-Matoka and Robert Arnold) take issue with that prioritization. The fact that the donor pool has remained relatively stable (and inadequate) despite massive efforts [End Page 211] to increase it speaks, at least in part, to the cultural and legal resistance to "new" ways to procure more organs. Voluntarism seems to have peaked. Financial incentives clash with the heavily endorsed notion of the "gift of life" and seem to many to violate the dignity of the human body. Presumed consent or eminent domain, in which the community has a greater claim to a person's organs than that person or his/her family, go against the grain of American individual freedom and the ethos of patient autonomy.Abandoning the dead donor rule generally is regarded as an even tougher sell to the American public and its legislators. The study by Siminoff and colleagues attempts, among other things, to gauge just how tough this sell would be. What the data actually demonstrate is a matter of interpretation, and this issue of the KIEJ is devoted to some of those interpretations. The authors, with the exception of Daniel Hausman, came together for a meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, during which the study's methods and data were presented with time for questions, clarifications, and general discussion. The authors then worked with the editors to generate the papers printed in this volume.The issue begins with a presentation of the study conducted by Siminoff and colleagues. The same paper also appears in the journal Social Science and Medicine, where it includes the conclusions of the authors (Siminoff, Burant, and Youngner 2004). In the current volume, we present only the methodology of and data from the study, allowing a number of distinguished commentators to offer their own conclusions and reflections.The first response comes from Tracy Schmidt, Executive Director of Intermountain Donor Services, one of our nation's organ procurement organizations (OPOs). For years, organ procurement professionals have reported anecdotal stories about families who wished to donate organs of... (shrink)

Foucault’s Introduction to a translation of Ludwig Binswanger’s essay ‘Dream and Existence’ was published in late 1954. The translation was credited to Jacqueline Verdeaux, with Foucault acknowledged for the notes. Yet Verdeaux herself indicates the intensely collaborative nature of their working process and the translation. In 1958, Victor von Weizsäcker’s Der Gestaltkreis was published in French as Le Cycle de la structure, translated by Foucault and Daniel Rocher. Foucault went on to translate and introduce Immanuel Kant’s Anthropology as his (...) secondary doctoral thesis. His engagement with Kant and Binswanger’s ideas has been discussed in the literature, but his role as translator has generally been neglected. His engagement with von Weizsäcker is almost never mentioned. This article critically discusses Foucault’s role in the Binswanger and von Weizsäcker translations, comparing the German originals with the French texts, and showing how this is a useful additional element to the story of the early Foucault. (shrink)

This essay argues, flouting paradox, that Mill was a utilitarian but not a consequentialist. First, it contends that there is logical space for a view that deserves to be called utilitarian despite its rejection of consequentialism; second, that this logical space is, in fact, occupied by John Stuart Mill. The key to understanding Mill's unorthodox utilitarianism and the role it plays in his moral philosophy is to appreciate his sentimentalist metaethics—especially his account of wrongness in terms of fitting guilt (...) and resentment. Mill recognizes a fundamental moral asymmetry between the agent and others, which conflicts intractably with a presupposition of consequentialism. This allows him to differentiate three potentially conflicting evaluative spheres: morality, prudence, and aesthetics. This essay's account of Mill's utilitarianism coheres with his defense of individual liberty and his embrace of supererogation, both of which elude traditional interpretations. (shrink)

Available for the first time in English, this is the definitive account of the practice of sexual slavery the Japanese military perpetrated during World War II by the researcher principally responsible for exposing the Japanese government's responsibility for these atrocities. The large scale imprisonment and rape of thousands of women, who were euphemistically called "comfort women" by the Japanese military, first seized public attention in 1991 when three Korean women filed suit in a Toyko District Court stating that they had (...) been forced into sexual servitude and demanding compensation. Since then the comfort stations and their significance have been the subject of ongoing debate and intense activism in Japan, much if it inspired by Yoshimi's investigations. How large a role did the military, and by extension the government, play in setting up and administering these camps? What type of compensation, if any, are the victimized women due? These issues figure prominently in the current Japanese focus on public memory and arguments about the teaching and writing of history and are central to efforts to transform Japanese ways of remembering the war. Yoshimi Yoshiaki provides a wealth of documentation and testimony to prove the existence of some 2,000 centers where as many as 200,000 Korean, Filipina, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Burmese, Dutch, Australian, and some Japanese women were restrained for months and forced to engage in sexual activity with Japanese military personnel. Many of the women were teenagers, some as young as fourteen. To date, the Japanese government has neither admitted responsibility for creating the comfort station system nor given compensation directly to former comfort women. This English edition updates the Japanese edition originally published in 1995 and includes introductions by both the author and the translator placing the story in context for American readers. (shrink)

Danielle Davis : Firstly, I wonder if you could briefly outline your position on mixed race identities. Are they desirable? My concern about these categories/identities is they present US with a double-edged sword. That is, on the one hand they perhaps enable difference, yet they also have the capacity to erase it. Lewis Gordon : The first part of the question is loaded, Danielle. When you say "desirable", what follows are other questions. "To whom?" "In what sense?" "For what purpose?" (...) Already embedded in notions of desire are subjects whose wishes and wants already structure a certain relation to the objects of their desire. Of course, there is the other sense, for example, in which John Stuart Mill referred to its being desirable to be Socrates. In that sense, we are asking about a normative ideal. My position on that issue is not unique to mixed-race people but also to any people. The notion of its being desirable to be a certain type of people already has within it the notion of there being people whom it is less desirable to be. Of course, being bad people is not desirable. But here, the comparison is not between good and bad, ethical or unethical, or even good and evil, but between modes of existing over which an ontological configuration may intervene regardless of what one may think or prefer. Much of that is at the heart of mixture. (shrink)

Since the 1990s we witness a rise in public apologies. Are we living in the `Age of Apology¿? Interesting research questions can be raised about the opportunity, the form, the meaning, the effectiveness and the ethical implications of public apologies. Are they not merely a clever and easy device to escape real and tangible responsibility for mistakes or wrong done? Are they not at risk to become well-rehearsed rituals that claim to express regret but, in fact, avoid doing so? In (...) a joint interdisciplinary effort, the contributors to this book, combining findings from their specific fields of research (legal, religious, political, linguistic, marketing and communication studies), attempt to articulate this tension between ritual and sincere regret, between the discourse and the content of apologies, between excuses that pretend and regret that seeks reconciliation. Daniël Cuypers: Professor of Labour Law and Discrimination Law at the University of Antwerp, Daniel Janssen: Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and international guest Professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, Jacques Haers: Academic Director University Centre Saint Ignatius Antwerpen and Professor of Systematic Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Barbara Segaert: Scientific Coordinator, University Centre Saint Ignatius Antwerpen. (shrink)

The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics offers an overview of standard microeconomics and general equilibrium theory. These are not the whole of orthodox economics, and orthodox economics is not the whole of economics. But orthodox economics dominates the profession, and the theoretical core of microeconomics and general equilibrium theory – what I called ‘equilibrium theory’ – is central to most orthodox economics. Unlike many methodological works, which focus almost exclusively on the empirical problems of equilibrium theory and its applications, (...) ISSE is also concerned with the structure, strategy and heuristics of equilibrium theorizing, and it attempts to link questions about theory appraisal to questions about structure and strategy. It is addressed both to philosophers interested in epistemological questions posed by the social sciences and to economists interested in reflecting on and improving their discipline. Its inspiration lies in the work of John Stuart Mill. (shrink)

This volume is a tribute to Roger Schwarzschild's immense contributions in the formal semantics of nouns, focus, degrees and space, and tense and aspect. Collectively, the papers in the volume reveal parallels across ontological domains, in particular in the context of elements with internal structure, like plural sets, alternative sets, degree intervals, temporal intervals, and vectors. This research suggests that the structure of an entity could inform the semantic behavior of that entity just as much than its semantic type or (...) lexical category. And because these structures dictate the formation of semantic alternatives, it can help inform focus semantics and scalar implicature as well. Old questions on plurals, focus and degree expressions get new answers in this collection of papers in honor of Roger Schwarzchild. Roger Schwarzschild is one of the leading scholars in semantics, and the editors have been highly successful in requesting contributions by his teachers, peers and former students. Some papers have circulated in draft form for many years, and find their final home in this edited volume, which well reflects the state of the art in the field. Prof. dr. Henriëtte de Swart, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. (shrink)

This text offers an interpretation of John Stuart Mill's ethical theory, Qualitatively-Hedonistic Utilitarianism, as well as a discussion, analysis and solution of problems that have arisen in the theory since the initial publication of Utilitarianism in 1861.

This is an undergraduate-level textbook that introduces classical political philosophy as a framework to evaluate the ethics of capitalism up to the present day. It is rooted in historical eighteenth- and nineteenth-century defenses of capitalism, as written by key proponents such as Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, and applies these arguments to contemporary issues such as wage inequality, global trade, climate change, and the welfare state. The authors aim to engage students in debating the ethics of economic systems-specifically (...) capitalism, socialism, and feudalism-and whether various contemporary economic injustices can be interpreted as legacy of each system. There are also study questions at the end of each chapter and an author-created companion website. (shrink)

Mill advocated an unqualified defense of the liberty of conscience in the most comprehensive sense, which he understood to include not just the freedom to hold but also to express any opinion or sentiment. Yet considerable dispute persists about the nature of Mill's argument for freedom of expression and whether his premises can support so strong a conclusion. Two versions of a prominent interpretation of Mill that threatens to undermine his uncompromising defense of free speech are considered and refuted. It (...) is shown how Mill's classically liberal commitments in moral psychology, ethology, and epistemology make the empirical grounds of his defense considerably more plausible than is commonly understood. This argument is especially vital because it highlights the divide between (classical) liberalism and progressivism that has become a flashpoint in the current political debate over freedom of speech. (shrink)

Discusses the composition of economic causes. Applications of John Stuart Mill’s inductive method to economics; Problems with the deductive method; Effect of multiple causal factors in economics; Derivation of economic laws; Mill’s arguments for deductive economics.

Wendy Donner'sThe Liberal Self: John Stuart Mill's Moral and Political Philosophyis an important and thought-provoking addition to the growing body of literature seeking to rescue Mill's practical philosophy from the rather lowly place it occupied in the estimation of many philosophers earlier this century, and to present him as a philosopher whose views form a coherent, systematic whole that can still contribute significantly to numerous moral and political debates. The book proposes an interpretation of the whole of Mill's practical (...) philosophy, and attempts to reveal how aspects of Mill's thought, hitherto considered incompatible, actually mutually support one another. At the same time, Donner sets many of Mill's positions in the context of contemporary moral and political philosophical debates, and finds that on a number of important issues, his thought stands up rather well against more recent work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Equal Freedom and Utility: Herbert Spencer’s Liberal Utilitarianısm by David WeinsteinDaniel PalmerDavid Weinstein. Equal Freedom and Utility: Herbert Spencer’s Liberal Utilitarianısm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xii + 235. Cloth, $69.95.Herbert Spencer, though influential and widely read in the nineteenth century, has been largely neglected by contemporary philosophers. David Weinstein argues that this neglect is unjustified, and that Spencer’s moral and political thought deserves the same attention (...) that has been afforded to Spencer’s contemporary John Stuart Mill. The comparison with Mill is particularly important for Weinstein. Indeed, he claims that, like Mill, Spencer was a liberal utilitarian who attempted to preserve a place for strong moral rights within a broadly utilitarian framework.A large part of Weinstein’s study is devoted to delineating the precise nature of Spencer’s utilitarianism. Weinstein argues that Spencer is both more consistently utilitarian and more systematic than has often been alleged. In the first two chapters he discusses Spencer’s utilitarianism in relation to his metaphysical principles and his account of moral psychology. Weinstein convincingly demonstrates that Spencer’s liberal utilitarianism follows from his views on social evolution. Spencer viewed evolutionary processes as leading to increasing differentiation among phenomena, which implied for Spencer a trend towards greater individuation of persons as societies evolve. Evolutionary principles also led Spencer to view happiness as largely dependent upon the exercise of faculties. Together, these views lend support to what Weinstein sees as the centerpiece of Spencer’s liberal utilitarianism, his principle of equal freedom, or the claim that “each shall have as much liberty to pursue his ends as consists with maintaining like liberties to pursue their ends by others” (38). The increasing individuation of individuals coupled with the dependence of happiness upon the free exercise of our faculties guaranteed for Spencer that the greatest happiness will be generated through the adoption of the principle of equal freedom.Weinstein’s central argument is that Spencer’s moral philosophy offers a distinctive version of indirect utilitarianism. In chapters 3 through 5 he outlines the main contours of Spencer’s liberal utilitarianism and its relevance to contemporary discussions, maintaining that Spencer accepted the utilitarian principle as the ultimate criterion of actions. However, much like Mill, and in reaction to Bentham, he argued that any direct pursuit of the greatest happiness is self-defeating. Spencer’s indirect utilitarianism sought to promote the conditions upon which happiness is founded through the principle of equal freedom. Moral rights were for him merely corollaries of the principle that flesh out its empty formalism, providing the basis for deliberation. Concrete moral rights such as property rights, contract rights, and exchange rights are therefore the basis for our primary obligations and yet find their ultimate justification in the principle of utility.Spencer’s two-tiered account of our moral obligations is thus remarkably similar to Mill’s account of moral rights in Chapter 5 of Utilitarianism. The difference between them concerns the stringency of moral rights. While Mill saw moral rights as important, but ultimately defeasible, Spencer viewed them as indefeasible. While Mill’s position seems more plausible from the utilitarian perspective, Weinstein shows that Spencer’s stronger position must be judged in terms of his beliefs about the exercise of human [End Page 685] faculties. Weinstein correctly shows that if Spencer is wrong, it is not because, as critics have charged, his position is logically inconsistent, but because he held mistaken views about human nature and society.While the heart of Equal Freedom and Utility concerns the relation between utility and moral rights in Spencer’s work, the final two chapters are devoted to metaethics and applied ethics respectively. Weinstein marshals strong textual support to show that Spencer never simply defined the good as happiness and that G. E. Moore’s use of Spencer in Principia Ethica as an example of someone who committed a glaring version of the naturalistic fallacy was not justified. Spencer simply avoided prolonged treatments of such metaethical concerns. In the last chapter Weinstein argues that Spencer’s evolving views on land nationalization reveals both the general nature of Spencer’s derivation of moral rights from the principle... (shrink)

argue that there are two forms of perfectionism in John Stuart Mill's work, two ideals of the person. One, the self-development ideal, is found in On Liberty. The other, the strong identification ideal, is tied to Mill's advocacy of a 'religion of humanity' and is found in Utilitarianism, 'Utility of Religion', and other texts. My first concern is to show that Mill's work contains this latter ideal. Next, I situate the strong identification ideal historically. Finally, I ask whether both (...) ideals could be substantially realized in a single life. The ideals are not logically incompatible. Their incompatibility will be one or another form of practical incompatibility. Most importantly, any form of perfectionism concerns the kind of person to be: it involves a distinctive habit of mind. The fundamental tension between the Millian ideals concerns the difficulty of combining their different habits of mind. (shrink)

In “Two Concepts of Liberty”, I. Berlin asserts, referring to Mill, that there is no necessary link between freedom as non-interference and freedom as self-government. If, by contrast, we focus our attention on freedom of expression, the assertion of Berlin loses its footing. Freedom of expression is, according to Mill, a public good:either because it serves to control the rulers, or because it allows the collective search for truth. Non-interference in the consciousness of individuals is not an end in itself, (...) but a first step in the formation of collective will. (shrink)

We present a number of modal logics to reason about group norms. As a preliminary step, we discuss the ontological status of the group to which the norms are applied, by adapting the classification made by Christian List of collective attitudes into aggregated, common, and corporate attitudes. Accordingly, we shall introduce modality to capture aggregated, common, and corporate group norms. We investigate then the principles for reasoning about those types of modalities. Finally, we discuss the relationship between group norms and (...) types of collective responsibility. (shrink)

A Less Traveled Path: Saddharmasmrtyupasthānasūtra Chapter 2, Critically Edited with a Study on Its Structure and Significance for the Development of Buddhist Meditation. 2 vols. By Daniel M. Stuart. Sanskrit Texts from the Tibetan Autonomous Region, vols. 18/1+2. Beijing: China Tibetology Publishing House; Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press, 2015. Pp. xiv + 642; 377. €98.

A partir da obra fotográfica “Colunas Infinitas”, do artista e ativista Daniel Lima, este artigo percebe o conceito de ‘entreligar’ de Homi Bhabha em diálogo com as teorias de cultura contemporânea de Stuart Hall, em contraponto à dissonância dos encontros culturais e artísticos desde nada menos que a ‘Semana de 22’ e sua celebração da arte brasileira restrita aos modernistas europeizados, mas que perdura aos dias de hoje, quer seja na ausência de outras manifestações estéticas nos currículos de (...) arte contemporânea, quer seja em consonância com as restrições sanitárias da COVID19, que une os acadêmicos em redes virtuais, colunas eletrônicas, mas interrompe os diálogos escolares aos despossuídos de aparelhos e redes virtuais. (shrink)

This thesis aims to provide the appropriate historical context for interpreting John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. The central question considered here concerns two views of Mill's intentions for Utilitarianism, and whether the work should be read as Mill arguing for his own version of utilitarianism, or as an ecumenical document expressing and defending the views of many utilitarians. The first view, labeled the orthodox view, as defended by Roger Crisp, is probably the most commonly held view as to how to (...) interpret the document. The second view, labeled the revisionist view, is defended by Daniel Jacobson in a recent article. By examining Mill's place in the history of utilitarianism, his journals, correspondence, and other writings leading up to and after the publication of Utilitarianism, this thesis argues in support of the revisionist position. Furthermore, it is argued that certain portions of the book deserve special consideration apart from other chapters, and this is taken to have implications for the future of research in Mill?s thought. This thesis has four chapters including the first introductory chapter, which outlines the motivations guiding the orthodox and revisionist views. The second chapter provides a general exposition of Utilitarianism, as well as an outline of the primary evidence supporting the orthodox and revisionist positions. The third chapter is a defense of the revisionist position, and it highlights the specific biographical context in which Utilitarianism was composed, as well as evidence from Mill's writings, correspondence, and journals suggesting that he saw the need to write a general defense of the principle of utility and elaborate his theory of justice. This chapter also includes a historiographical analysis of Mill's biographers, which suggests that Utilitarianism is not viewed by Mill's biographers as being especially central to his considered views on utilitarianism. Finally, the chapter includes a section on the early reception and criticisms offered against Utilitarianism, which partly explains why the book has come to be interpreted as it has. The final chapter reviews the evidence for the revisionist position and explains the implications for Mill scholarship in light of the findings of this study. (shrink)

Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was the mastermind behind the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that ended the War of the Spanish Succession, and a lifelong rival of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. He is also known for his political use of history based on the saying of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: ‘history is a philosophy teaching by examples’. While much scholarly attention has been paid to Bolingbroke’s historical criticism of Walpole’s Whig oligarchy, his discussion of European international (...) history has been treated as a mere vindication of the Treaty of Utrecht, thus not meriting further investigation. This article reconstructs Bolingbroke’s writings on European politics as a history of British foreign policy. Arguing that his focus was on Britain’s role in maintaining the balance of power, this article demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Bolingbroke attacked the Hanoverian government not for its involvement in European politics per se but for its abandonment of the Old System of William III against France. Bolingbroke believed history was repeating itself. As the Stuarts had helped France achieve hegemony half a century ago, the Hanoverians enabled France to regain supremacy in their pursuit of private interests, re-disrupting the European balance of power. (shrink)

El 26 de marzo de 2021 se realizó el panel virtual “Memoria, género y activismo. Resistencia a la dictadura y lucha por el aborto legal”. El evento fue organizado por Emilio Crenzel y Daniele Salerno en el marco del proyecto MEMORIGHTS - Memoria Cultural en el Activismo LGBT, con sede en la Universidad de Utrecht y en la Universidad de Buenos Aires, desarrollado dentro del programa Marie Sklodowska-Curie de la Unión Europea. El panel contó también con la colaboración del (...) proyecto del European Research Council "REACT - Remembering Activism" con sede en la Universidad de Utrecht (coordinadora Ann Rigney). Las participantes del panel fueron Elizabeth Jelin (CONICET - CIS-IDES) y Bárbara Sutton (SUNY – Albany) y estuvo coordinado por Emilio Crenzel (CONICET-UBA). (shrink)

Is there enough progress in philosophy? It is notable that even within the discipline, opinions are divided. Optimists think there is more than enough progress in philosophy. Pessimists think we could and should do better. In this chapter I defend an optimistic answer to this question.

The view we defend is that in virtue of its nature, disgust is not fit to do any moral or social work whatsoever, and that there are no defensible uses for disgust in legal or political institutions. We first describe our favoured empirical theory of the nature of disgust. Turning from descriptive to normative issues, we address the best arguments in favour of granting disgust the power to justify certain judgements, and to serve as a social tool, respectively. Daniel (...) Kahan advances a pair of theses that suggest disgust is indispensable (Moral Indispensability Thesis), and so has an important part to play in the functioning of a just, well-ordered society (Conservation Thesis). We develop responses and show how they rebut the arguments given in support of each thesis. We conclude that any society free of social disgust would be more just, reasonable and compassionate. (shrink)