I begin by refuting Davidson’s classic account of akrasia, which turns on a purported distinction between judging p and judging p “all things considered.” The upshot of this refutation is that an adequate account of akrasia must turn on a distinction between different ways in which the agent can make judgments about her practical reasons. On the account I propose, an akratic agent makes an existential judgment that there is some decisive practical reason to act in a certain way without (...) also knowing what that reason is. An agent can do what such a reason requires only by deviating from the conditions under which her action would be a response to it. The possibility of akrasia is a consequence of our concern not only to perform actions that match what our reasons require but also to manifest reasons in conduct that they inform. (shrink)

This is a book about the nature of film: about the nature of moving images, about the viewer's relation to film, and about the kinds of narrative that film is capable of presenting. It represents a very decisive break with the semiotic and psychoanalytic theories of film which have dominated discussion. The central thesis is that film is essentially a pictorial medium and that the movement of film images is real rather than illusory. A general theory of pictorial representation is (...) presented, which insists on the realism of pictures and the impossibility of assimilating them to language. It criticizes attempts to explain the psychology of film viewing in terms of the viewer's imaginary occupation of a position within the world of film. On the contrary, film viewing is nearly always impersonal. (shrink)

Political philosophers old and new have defended the twin claims that (i) traditions embody wisdom, and (ii) transforming tradition based on aprioristic theory threatens to disregard that wisdom. This article argues that while a priori theorizing about justice is indeed epistemically valuable, a priori theories of justice usually tend to merit moderate to low credences. The article develops an account of what I call the “A Priori Theorizing Thesis,” which holds that such theses are likely to be false and dangerous (...) when implemented, and the “Non-substitution Thesis,” which holds that theorists should generally be disinclined to substitute their judgment for the wisdom of social traditions and norms. Along the way, Burke's positive contributions are emphasized and his hyperbole ignored. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy in the ideology of what the author calls the “Nationalist International,” a loosely affiliated international network of “New” Right, nationalist, alt-right, and neo-fascist groups. The author argues that thought leaders of this movement, from the relatively obscure to politicians and organizers in major political parties, such as Steve Bannon in the MAGA movement in the United States or Marc Jongen of Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, have drawn upon Heidegger to articulate (...) their principles and aims. More openly neo-fascist thinkers, such as Greg Johnson in the United States and Aleksandr Dugin in Russia, have produced sophisticated readings of Heidegger to support their causes. Such figures use Heidegger’s critique of Plato, as the onset of a metaphysical nihilism that culminates in modernity, to condemn liberalism as a facet of a rootless universalism that deprives a people of its history and identity. The repudiation of classical liberal democracy in many militant alt-right organizations and online communities played a role in assault on Congress on January 6, 2021 and Donald Trump’s attempted coup that day. The conclusion addresses the question of how educators and others can engage a new generation vulnerable to radicalization and argues for a form of “absolute welcome” as a response to increasing polarization. (shrink)

Gregory McCulloch; III*—The Very Idea of the Phenomenological, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 39–58, https://do.

A social insurance scheme against a short life seems impossible: ex ante (before lengths of life are known), it is hard to identify the persons who will be short-lived, and ex post (once lengths of life are known), it is often too late to compensate the short-lived. However, it is possible to insure persons against a short life by means of age-based statistical discrimination that favours the young in line with the Herod strategy: allocating the good things of life to (...) all young adults improves the situation of the unidentified persons who will die prematurely and reduces the deprivation due to an early death. This article examines three challenges questioning the capacity of the Herod strategy to reduce wellbeing deprivation due to a premature death. First, the limited substitutability between the quantity and the quality of life years makes an efficient insurance scheme against a short life incomplete. Second, the state cannot know ex ante the conception of the good life of the short-lived and must offer baskets of universal means that would improve all kinds of short lives. Such baskets will, under endowment effects, affect the adopted views about the good life, against the ideal of a neutral state. Third, the bias towards the future makes persons spontaneously reallocate the good things of life to later ages, which would defeat insurance against a short life. (shrink)

This volume examines the complex and vitally important ethical questions connected with the deployment of nuclear weapons and their use as a deterrent. A number of the essays contained here have already established themselves as penetrating and significant contributions to the debate on nuclear ethics. They have been revised to bring out their unity and coherence, and are integrated with new essays. The books exceptional rigor and clarity make it valuable whether the reader's concern with nuclear ethics is professional or (...) personal. Part I explores the morality of nuclear deterrrence from each of the two dominant traditions in moral philosophy, deontology and consequentialism, and points out a number of interesting ethical dilemmas. Part II criticizes a variety of alternatives to deterrence - unilateral nuclear disarmament, world government, strategic defense against ballistic missiles, and nuclear coercion - and argues for mutual nuclear disarmament as a realistic and desirable long-run alternative. (shrink)

Adam Slavny's Wrongs, Harms, and Compensation: Paying for Our Mistakes (OUP, 2023) is predicated on a break with a foundational assumption of most contemporary tort theory. It renounces all aspirat...

The doctrine of promissory fraud holds that a contractual promise implicitly represents an intent to perform. A promisor's conditional intent to perform poses a problem for that doctrine. It is clear that some undisclosed conditions on the promisor's intent should result in liability for promissory fraud. Yet no promisor intends to perform come what may, so there is a sense in which all promisors conditionally intend to perform. Building on Michael Bratman's planning theory of intentions, this article provides a theoretical (...) account of the distinction between “foreground” and “background” conditions on intentions in general and then explains why foreground conditions on a promisor's intent to perform are likely to result in material promissory misrepresentation, while background conditions are not. The difference between foreground and background conditions lies in whether the agent accepts the satisfaction of the condition for the purposes of her practical reasoning. A promisor's nonacceptance of a condition on her intent to perform is material because it is likely to affect her preperformance deliberations and investment in the transaction, as well as her willingness to seek agreement with the promisee on how to fill contractual gaps. (shrink)

The lack of anatomical evolution contrasted with an evident behavioral change in humans during their natural history, from about 200,000 to 700,000 years ago, constitutes something of a puzzle. What explains the behavioral change, a change which is commonly understood as cultural? Against the surprisingly widespread but tautological response that the change was driven by culture – which amounts to the unsatisfying argument that culture drives culture, all the way down, or back – this paper presents a theory developed by (...) Andrey Vyshedskiy, whose work on autism and language therapies has led him to an account of the neurobiological basis of voluntary imagination, which here I redescribe as an account of the evolution of the neurology of culture. (shrink)

This Element outlines and defends an account of analyticity according to which mathematics is, for the most part, analytic. The author begins by looking at Quine's arguments against the concepts of analyticity. He shows how Quine's position on analyticity is related to his view on explication and shows how this suggests a way of defining analyticity that would meet Quine's own standards for explication. The author then looks at Boghossian and his distinction between epistemic and metaphysical accounts of analyticity. Here (...) he argues that there is a straightforward way of eliminating the confusion Boghossian sees with what he calls metaphysical accounts. The author demonstrates that the epistemic dimension of his epistemic account is almost entirely superfluous. The author then discusses how analyticity is related to truth, necessity, and questions of ontology. Finally, he discusses the vagueness of analyticity and also the relation of analyticity to the axiomatic method in mathematics. (shrink)

From American Empire to América Cósmica through Philosophy: Prospero’s Reflection is the culmination of MacMullan’s research on a broader conception of American Philosophy. The expanded notion of “American” Philosophy not only makes sense, but it is one of the most promising present ventures in dealing with the lives and problems of people across the Americas. The book opens an important dialogue between the American pragmatist traditions and Latin American philosophers who have been ignored, such as Vaz Ferreira, Pedro Albizu Campos, (...) and Risieri Frondizi. More importantly, it introduces the perspective of these philosophers on both the virtues and the vices of the United States. This is the much-needed critical... Read More. (shrink)

Much work in bioethics tries to sidestep bedrock questions about moral values. This is fine if we agree on our values; arguments about human enhancement suggest we do not. One bedrock question underlying these arguments concerns the role of emotion in morality: worries about enhancement are derided as emotional and thus irrational. In fact, both emotion and reason are integral to all moral judgment.

This paper concerns the problem of how to give historical explanations of scientist's decisions to prefer one theory over another. It is argued that such explanations ought to contain only statements about the beliefs and preferences of the agents involved, and, in particular, ought not to include evaluative premises about the theories themselves. It is argued that Lakatos's attempt to build into such historical explanations premises of an evaluative kind is deficient. The arguments of Laudan to the effect that such (...) explanations depend crucially upon evaluative assumptions about the rationality or irrationality of decisions are examined. It is argued that they do not establish the need for such assumptions. Similar criticisms are then shown to be applicable to a version of the 'hermeneutical' model of explanation for human actions. (shrink)

This study investigated (1) whether potential future purchasing agents were predisposed to accept gratuities or whether the practice of gratuity acceptance is a manifestation of the job itself, (2) whether the existence of a code of ethics forbidding gratuity acceptance curtails the occurrence, and (3) whether disparities in ethics policies between the sales and purchasing functions affect gratuity acceptance. Hypotheses based upon the concepts of organizational concern and institutionalized ethics are developed and empirically tested. Results suggest that future purchasing agents (...) are predisposed to accept gratuities and that formal written ethics policies decrease the acceptance of gratuities. Disparities in ethics policies between the sales and purchasing functions concerning gratuities failed to affect gratuity acceptance significantly. (shrink)

Yet, in broader terms, formal epistemology is not merely a methodological tool for epistemologists, but a discipline in its own right. On this programmatic view, formal epistemology is an interdisciplinary research program that covers work by philosophers, mathematicians, computer scientists, statisticians, psychologists, operations researchers, and economists who aim to give mathematical and sometimes computational representations of, along with sound strategies for reasoning about, knowledge, belief, judgment and decision making.

During the inter war period, European Catholic authors exhibited two different approaches to the question of just war. One approach was articulated at the “Fribourg Conventus,” a 1931 meeting of French, Swiss, and German theologians, whose subsequent declaration (Conventus de bello, published in 1932) called for a reformulation of Catholic teaching based on the premise that the traditional just‐war doctrine had been superseded by developments in international law. A competing approach was articulated by the Dutch Jesuit Robert Regout, who maintained (...) that the just‐war doctrine could contribute to the formation of international law by providing a much‐needed normative foundation for the use of armed force by individual states in redress of their violated rights. After presenting these two approaches and explaining how they differ, this essay shows how the outlook of the Conventus de bello is reflected in subsequent papal statements on armed force—to the detriment of the traditional terminology of just war. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: The authors are to be congratulated for this daring and imaginative attempt to discuss art and aesthetic experience in neurological terms. The core of the argument is the relevance of the peak shift effect to our understanding of aesthetics. The application of this well-known principle of animal discrimination learning certainly does seem plausible and appropriate in the context.