In interwar Vienna, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and his colleagues developed an approach to survey research that used the questionnaire and the direct, face-to-face interview to gather data about subjective experience for aggregative analysis. For these young researchers, the questionnaire-based interview emerged from a contradictory set of Central European intellectual traditions and political concerns. Enthusiasm on the political left for quantification and the gathering of social data encouraged survey research; yet, local political allies and intellectual mentors also opposed the study of (...) individual attitudes and the quantitative aggregation of such material. Academic psychology legitimized the use of “introspection” and facilitated the extension of this method to populations of untrained subjects. The methodological concept of the “model” helped overcome the Verstehen/Erklären dichotomy within debates over the proper methods of the human and social sciences. This article examines methodological and philosophical statements, study designs, and questionnaires to explain how the interview gained particular importance within this setting. (shrink)

There have been times in the history of ethical theory, especially in this century, when moral realism was down, but it was never out. The appeal of this doctrine for many moral philosophers is apparently so strong that there are always supporters in its corner who seek to resuscitate the view. The attraction is obvious: moral realism purports to provide a precious philosophical good, viz., objectivity and all that this involves, including right answers to (most) moral questions, and the possibility (...) of knowing those answers. In the last decade, moral realism has re-entered the philosophical ring in powerful-looking naturalistic form. ln this paper we provide a dialectical overview: we situate the new wave position itself, and also our objections to it, in the context of the evolving program of philosophical naturalism in 20th century analytic philosophy. We seek to show that although this new contender might initially look like championship material, it succumbs to punches surprisingly similar to those that knocked out the old-fashioned versions of naturalist moral realism. (shrink)

Just war thinking applies to the conflict Afghanistan, particularly that underdeveloped part of the just war tradition that deals with war’s end and post-conflict (jus post bellum). This essay considers the some of the fundamental ethical challenges of the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, arguing that by considering a jus post bellum framework of Order, Justice, and Conciliation we can address some of the great ethical issues faced by the US government in Afghanistan today. More specifically, this essay (...) will focus on three ethical challenges:• The moral imperative of establishing and enduring political order.• The conflict between our ideals of justice and those of many Afghans.• Establishing a foundation for conciliation among warring parties. (shrink)

Although much legal scholarship discusses the meaning of the religion clauses of the U.S. Constitution, very few articles analyze the ways in which state regulation affects actors' incentives to engage in religious behavior. Yet the question of how a law influences religious behavior is important for determining whether various laws are desirable, and whether they violate constitutional constraints. This article draws on recent economic models of religious organization to analyze the ways in which laws affect the behavior of religious groups. (...) Religious groups produce collective goods for their members, and the effect of laws can be analyzed by examining how they modify the payoffs members receive for cooperating or free riding. The article examines the use of laws to establish religious groups, to subsidize them with cash or tax benefits, to provide accommodations for them, to provide symbolic support for them, to provide secular substitutes for the collective goods they produce, and to regulate disputes between members. The article also briefly discusses the constitutional implications of the analysis. (shrink)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky expressed a strange and surprising sentiment through one of the characters of The Brothers Karamazov. A dying young man named Markel declares: Every one of us has sinned against all men, and I more than others." He later says: "...every one of us is answerable for everyone else and for everything." Markel's absurd claims have engendered many reflections on the nature of suffering and what it means to be responsible for someone else's suffering. The world has no shortage (...) of pain and evil; what exactly is the relationship between suffering and responsibility? Markel's declarations press forward a question that drives this essay collection: how responsible should we consider ourselves for the suffering of the world? This volume is a collection of essays that struggle in various ways to understand and respond to several philosophical, theological and practical problems. In each case the authors grapple with issues surrounding suffering, immorality, evil, exploitation and oppression. The contributors share a clear concern for the ways that philosophers and theologians should respond to the problems of suffering and evil. They also share a conviction that these remain intense and central problems for philosophy and theology. Evil is an obstacle for belief, for morality, for hospitality, and for hope. This book struggles to address the particular and strong sense of responsibility that falls on Christians when it comes to understanding and, more importantly, responding to the problems of suffering and evil in the world. (shrink)

The fundamental reason that the genetics of behavior has remained so controversial for so long is that the layer of theory between data and their interpretation is thicker and more opaque than in more established areas of science. The finding that variations in tiny snippets of DNA have small but detectable relations to variation in behavior surprises no one, at least no one who was paying attention to the twin studies. How such snippets of DNA are related to differences in (...) behavior—known as the gene‐to‐behavior pathway—is the great theoretical problem of modern behavioral genetics.Given that intentional human breeding is a horrific prospect, what kind of technology might we want (or fear) out of human behavioral genetics? One possibility is a technology that could predict important behavioral characteristics of humans based on their genomes alone. A moment's thought suggests significant benefits and risks that might be associated with such a possibility, but for the moment, just consider how convincing it would be if on the day of a baby's birth we could make meaningful predictions about whether he or she would become a concert pianist or an alcoholic. This article will consider where we are right now as regards that possibility, using human height and intelligence as the primary examples. (shrink)

Cet article étudie le développement des réflexions de Darwin sur l’éthique, de ses Carnets de notes à La filiation de l’homme . Loin d’être un épiphénomène tardif, l’approche naturaliste de l’éthique de Darwin est largement dessinée dès 1840 : elle explique la convergence du sens moral avec un critère d’utilité rétrospectif . Le travail ultérieur de Darwin clarifie la relation entre instincts et habitudes morales héréditaires, tout en soulignant le rôle central de la sympathie dans l’origine et l’évolution du sens (...) moral.This paper examines the development of Darwin’s reflections on morality, from his Notebooks through The Descent of Man . Far from being a late epiphenomenon, Darwin’s naturalist approach to ethics was largely in place by 1840: it explains the convergence between moral sense and a retrospective utility criterion . Darwin’s later work clarifies the relation between instincts and hereditary moral habits, while underlining the central role of sympathy in the origin and evolution of moral sense. (shrink)

In this paper I examine John Dewey's correspondence and selected writings to illuminate Dewey's understanding of and possible shaping of William James's work as it pertains to politics and democracy. I suggest a way of seeing a richer connection between the thinkers than has been portrayed and a picture of influence flowing from Dewey to James.

The most up-to-date philosophical discussion of the quasi-historical fantasy television show Game of ThronesThe Ultimate Game of Thrones and Philosophy treats fans to dozens of new essays by experts who examine philosophical questions raised by the Game of Thrones story.

First published in 1950 under title: The great philosophers: the Eastern world.

In Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research Lee and Baskerville (2003) attempt to clarify generalization and distinguish four types of generalization. Although this is a useful objective, what they call generalization is often not generalization at all in the proper sense of the word. We elucidate generalization by locating their major errors. A main source of these is their failure to understand the depth of Hume’s problem of induction. We give a thorough explication of the problem and then give a (...) solution. Lastly, we propose an alternative taxonomy of generalization: theoretical, within-population, cross-population, contextual, and temporal. (shrink)

Despite apparently holding diametrically opposed attitudes toward dialectical logic, both George Santayana and the early Frankfurt School critical theorists posit a close link between the concepts of reason and domination. It is argued that a broadly-speaking Hegelian philosophical project can survive Santayana’s critiques, albeit by benefitting from the latter’s, as well as from the Frankfurt School’s, re-centering of nature in the history of domination. In the alternative, Santayanaists who would reject Hegel must reckon with the proximity and affinity, notwithstanding Santayana’s (...) suggestions to the contrary, of their perspectives on the ultimately tragic structure of history. (shrink)

This paper concerns reductionist views about psychology and the special sciences more generally. I identify a metaphysical assumption in reductionist views which I dub the ‘Micro–Macro Mirroring Thesis’. The Mirroring Thesis says that the relation between the entities of any legitimate higher-level science and their lower-level realizers is similar to that between the entities of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. I argue that reductionism implies the Thesis, and that the Thesis is not a priori. It is more difficult to tell whether (...) the Thesis is true, and I indicate some relevant considerations. (shrink)

Arguments for A "fair" coin has probability 1/2. There is no physical probability attached to the coin, we can cheat on each toss (by sufficient control). My aim: The coin toss is fine-grained deterministic, but coarsgrained random.

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

This paper illustrates the need for a more integrated theoretical account of two large but typically isolated subjects in twentieth century Augustine studies: love and the ambiguous relation of Augustinianism to liberalism. The paper is divided into three parts. First, by aligning Augustinian caritas with a feminist "ethic of care," it presents a morally robust ethics of liberalism that differs from both liberal-realist and antiliberal extrapolations of the Augustinian tradition. Second, and most extensively, it presents Hannah Arendt's provocative reading of (...) Augustine that issues both "Kantian" and "Nietzschean" challenges to a political ethic that moves beyond liberal reciprocity and relates love for neighbor to love for God. Finally, and more tentatively, it argues that Augustine's much maligned categories of "use" and "enjoyment" should be redeemed by those who defend a version of Augustinian liberalism that does not sentimentalize or privatize love. (shrink)