In “The Responsibilities and Role of Business in Relation to Society,” Nien-hê Hsieh challenges Joseph Heath’s “market failure” or Paretian approach to business ethics by arguing for a “Back to Basics” approach. Here, I argue that two basics of Hsieh’s three-basics vision are flawed, because a. ordinary morality is in fact not sufficient for the adversarial realm of the market, and b. the ideal of a Pareto-optimal market economy with perfect competition does in fact provide an adequate basis for (...) normative rules against market failures. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 2, Page 21-31, March‐April 2022.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Utilitarianism in the Early American Republic by James E. CrimminsAndrew GustafsonUtilitarianism in the Early American Republic James E. Crimmins. Routledge, 2022.There are many important influences on American Pragmatism, but one which is frequently overlooked is the influence of Utilitarianism, both on American thought in general, and American Pragmatism in particular. It is difficult to imagine anyone better to write this book than James Crimmins. As a leading Bentham (...) scholar, among his twelve previously published books on utilitarianism, he is editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (Bloomsbury, 2013) and the four-volume set Utilitarians and Their Critics in America, 1789–1914 (Thoemmes Continuum, 2005). His vast knowledge of the history of utilitarianism, which he has spent his entire career investigating, makes him the perfect author for this very helpful book on the influences of utilitarianism in early American thought. It is a rich sourcebook that can help direct anyone looking to do more research in this area. Here, Crimmins provides a thorough historical account of the influence of utilitarianism on the development of early American thought and the rise of pragmatism, giving reason to believe that utilitarianism was more impactful on American pragmatism than is often realized.The first chapter highlights why utilitarian influence on American law and politics is overlooked and why it should not be. Chapters 2 and 3 explain how American thought leaders came to know of Bentham's work, and chapters 4–7 discuss concrete examples of thinkers who brought utilitarianism to bear on issues in America (for example, Hoffman on legal studies in chapter 4, Livingston on legislative law in chapter 5, the death penalty debate in chapter 6, and Thomas Cooper's wide-ranging influences in chapter 7). The epilogue provides a specific set of arguments for why the utilitarians' influence on American Pragmatism should be more widely recognized and investigated.Crimmins begins the book by explaining why utilitarianism, as an influence in early American politics, is typically excluded and ignored by thinkers from John Dewey to Élie Halévy. One reason is that William Paley's Principles of Political and Moral Philosophy (which was used widely as a moral text in US universities throughout the 1800s) was published in 1785, and Bentham's An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation was published in 1789, and even then Bentham's ideas didn't gain public circulation (and then only in French) until Etienne Dumont published the three-volume Traités de législation civile et pénale in 1802. But the more important reason utilitarianism [End Page 106] has not received attention, according to Crimmins, is due to the dominant focus placed on Locke's natural law and rights view being the lens by which American politics has been understood. Some have challenged this Lockean consensus and pointed out that republican virtues drawn from the ancient Greeks and others show up in ideas such as the "right to happiness" (which is a right that is found nowhere in Locke) (20). Crimmins shows that there was a very strong emphasis on "public utility," "general welfare," and happiness, and this frequently outweighed concerns for natural rights for thinkers like Thomas Paine, John Adams, Nathaniel Chipman, Joseph Haven, and many other early American thinkers. Furthermore, utilitarian considerations can be found in the Constitution and federalist papers, and even Tocqueville explained American thinking through the lens of utilitarian concerns.Bentham was ambitious in attempting to promote codification of law in many countries worldwide. While Bentham had made offers (some accepted, some rejected) to help in the codification of law to various countries, ranging from Catherine the Great's Russia to France, Portugal, Spain, and numerous South American countries, he spent much of the last quarter of his life focused on trying to provide his services to the new United States. In chapter 2, Crimmins provides a history of the dissemination of Bentham's ideas in the United States, highlighting some of the key promoters of his ideas in the United States, including Richard Hildreth and John Neal, as well as John O'Sullivan, Gilbert Vale, and, of course, Thomas Cooper. Crimmins also provides a meticulous account of Bentham's personal attempts... (shrink)

Contemporary commentators on Emerson often assume that the American essayist has been successfully rehabilitated as a philosopher. If we consider seriously his claims to philosophy from a contemporary perspective, however, we must also deal with the treatments of his philosophy critically. This is because philosophy, in itself, is a critical discipline, and every philosophical treatment of Emersonian thought deserves to be treated on the same footing with that of any other classical thinker.Joseph Urbas’s Emerson’s Metaphysics joins David Van Leer’s (...) Emerson’s Epistemology and Gustaf Van Gromphout’s Emerson’s Ethics as thematic, ambitiously titled attempts at providing general accounts of the different... (shrink)

Gustaf son's ethics is both conservative and revolutionary. By taking Calvin, Luther, and Augustine as discussion partners, he avoids the "culs-de-sac" into which seventeenth-century physical science drove the "theology" of nature. In doing so, he shares the Stoic tendency in late twentieth-century science, e.g., in ecology. For him, "the powers that bear down on us and sustain us" are present in our experience of the world; and this experience must square with our other empirical knowledge, e.g., in biology. Yet (...) it is not clear how we are to ground, in detail, the "moral" perceptions of nature to which Gustafson finally appeals. (shrink)

Provides a set of normative measure sto assess the value of nature and proposes the new discipline of foundational ecology as a response to environmental crisis.

A thesis familiar by being as often disputed as defended has it that intentional action is action for a reason. The present paper contributes to the defence of a weaker version of it, namely: Acting with an intention or a purpose is acting (as things appear to one) for a reason.

In this paper I focus on John Locke as a representative figure of English Enlightenment theorizing about the legitimacy of cognitive authority and examine the way in which a greater attention to the cultural milieu in which Locke worked can lead to a profound reexamination of his writings on cognitive authority. In particular, I suggest that an inattention to the rise of a culture of reading and the growing availability of books in Early Modern England has led historians of philosophy (...) largely to misrepresent Locke's theory of testimonial justification. At the core of my paper are two interrelated claims. First, with respect to the history of ideas, I argue that the Locke's interest in testimony as a source of justification was in fact greater than that of his Scholastic forebears, and that this fact has a simple, if as yet unacknowledged, cultural cause -- viz., the rise of the book as a mass commodity in the late 17th century. Second, with respect to the history of philosophy more particularly, I argue that this failure to acknowledge the cultural movements that led to a consideration of testimony as a topic of interest to epistemologists in the Modern era has led to a misreading of Locke's work on the subject. Indeed, Locke, though usually read as having attempted to denigrate testimony as a legitimate source of justification, in fact sought to devise an epistemology that would do justice to the centrality of testimony in the intellectual lives of growing numbers of his contemporaries in 17th and 18th century England and Scotland. (shrink)

Parkinson, Joseph Bioethics at the bedside looks different from bioethics in the classroom, because the patient in the bed is a person with their own particular history, a unique experience of illness, and an unrepeatable future. In the context of Christian faith, bioethics must include far more than mere clinical data and academic prowess: there must be a central role for the God who is mystery. This article reflects on the rich perspective of leading American paediatrician and ethicist, Bioethics (...) has never been an exact science. Even when it strives for absolute objectivity by the application of the most rigorous philosophical discipline, clinical situations often escape our capacity to arrive at certain judgement. This should not surprise us, of course, since clinical situations are often extremely complex human dramas, and in such matters, as Aristotle reminds us, we should never expect greater certainty than our subject matter allows. (shrink)

Arthur Fine has recently argued that standard realist and anti-realist interpretations of science should be replaced by "natural ontological attitude" (NOA). I ask whether Fine's own justification for NOA can meet the standards of argument that underlie his criticisms of realism and anti-realism. Fine vacillates between two different ways of advocating NOA. The more minimalist defense ("why not try NOA?") begs the question against both realists and antirealists. A stronger program, based on Fine's arguments for a "no-theory" of truth, has (...) promise, but the arguments must be developed in a stronger, more general form if they are to justify NOA. (shrink)

Joseph Agassi One Palestine, Two Nations Many are the problems that beset the tragically war-torn and forlorn Palestine. The extant proposed solutions to them all are few. They all relate to the framework of the establishment or the re-establishment of one, two, or three states. Let me list them first regardless of their value.

Essays by Ernesto Buonaiuti, Friedrich Heiler, Wilhelm Koppers, Louis Massignon, Jean de Menasce, Erich Neumann, Henri-Charles Puech, Gilles Quispel, Erwin Rousselle, Boris Vyshelawzeff, and Heinrich Zimmer.

Joseph Raz addresses one of the most basic philosophical questions: how to explain normativity in its many guises. His value-based account is brought to bear on many aspects of the lives of rational beings and their agency, such as their ability to maintain relationships, and to live their lives as social beings with a sense of their identity.

This is a copy of the Proceedings version of a paper presented at the Workshop on Computational Intelligence and Semiotics, organized by João Queiroz and Ricardo Gudwin, held at Itaú Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil, on 8-9 October, 2002. (This version contains material not actually delivered at the conference.) Queiroz and Gudwin will be releasing the Proceedings volume on a..

If we can save the lives of only one of multiple groups of people, we might be inclined simply to save whichever group is largest. We may worry, though, that automatically saving the largest group fails to take each saveable individual sufficiently into account, offering some of these individuals no chance at all of being rescued. Still wanting to give larger groups higher chances of survival, we may then say that we ought to employ a proportionally weighted lottery to determine (...) which group to save. In this paper, I argue that this would be a mistake. Given the most plausible way of specifying it, the weighted-lottery view itself fails to treat each saveable individual with equal moral respect. (shrink)

This epic piece of storytelling brings the world of fifteenth-century Italy to life as it traces Machiavelli's rise from young boy to controversial political thinker. The often-vilified Renaissance politico and author of The Prince comes to life as a diabolically clever, yet mild mannered and conscientious civil servant. Author Joseph Markulin presents Machiavelli's life as a true adventure story, replete with violence, treachery, heroism, betrayal, sex, bad popes, noble outlaws, deformed kings, menacing Turks, even more menacing Lutherans, unscrupulous astrologers, (...) untrustworthy dentists--and, of course, forbidden love. While sharing the stage with Florence's Medici family, the nefarious and perhaps incestuous Borgias, the artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, and the doomed prophet Savonarola, Machiavelli is imprisoned, tortured, and ultimately abandoned. Nevertheless, he remains the sworn enemy of tyranny and a tireless champion of freedom and the republican form of government. Out of the cesspool that was Florentine Renaissance politics, only one name is still uttered today--that of Niccolo Machiavelli. This mesmerizing, vividly told story will show you why his fame endures. (shrink)

In The Contemplative Self after Michel Henry: A Phenomenological Theology, Joseph Rivera provides a close and critical reconstruction of the philosophical anthropology of Michel Henry (1922-2002) while also addressing the question of how theology contributes to Henry's phenomenology. In conversation with other French figures such as Derrida, Marion, Lacoste, and Barbaras, Rivera undertakes a global thematic study of Henry's work. He shows how, for Henry, the theological debate is shifted onto a phenomenological problem, with a coincident will to pursue (...) the epistemological efforts of Husserl and Heidegger. The chapters tackle some of the most pressing debates in contemporary Continental philosophy, such as the "modern ego," the nature and experience of temporality, and the constitution of the body and otherness, and how a theological discourse may illumine those anthropological structures. The book expands on the modern narrative of the self from Descartes to Nietzsche, opens up the particular lines of inquiry Henry advances in dialogue with those figures and phenomenology in particular, and highlights the surprising theological turns in Henry's late work on Christianity. Because Henry's work is difficult, it is often misunderstood; Rivera's own vision of the self, one that is shaped by Henry but not in full agreement with him, advances insights internal to Henry but also brings into sharp focus many problematic points in Henry's phenomenological theology. An array of classical theological voices appear in the final chapters, such as St. Augustine, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and Gregory of Nyssa, all of whom are set in dialogue with Henry. A fresh and creative articulation of contemplation and selfhood, the volume is a valuable addition to the continuing conversation that seeks to build bridges between phenomenology and theology. (shrink)

Ecology and sustainability are current narratives about the behavior of humans toward themselves and the environment. Ecology is defined as a science, and a philosophy of ecology has become a recognized domain of the philosophy of science. For some, sustainability is an accepted, important moral goal. In 2013, a Special Issue of the journal Sustainability dealt with many of the relevant issues. Unfortunately, the economic, ideological, and psychological barriers to ethical behavior and corresponding social action remain great as well as (...) obvious. In this paper, I propose that a new, non-standard and non-propositional logic of real processes, Logic in Reality (LIR) grounded in physics applies to the science and philosophy of these narratives and helps to explicate them. Given the ecological role of organizations and institutions, reference is often made to organizational or institutional logics as guides to ecological practice. This paper suggests that these logics are either too abstract or too informal to have an impact in a conflictual world. Recognition of the suggested new, transdisciplinary logical dimension of ecological processes may provide credibility and support to new initiatives in ecology and its philosophy. (shrink)

Thorstein Veblen is perhaps best thought of as America’s answer to Karl Marx. This is sometimes obscured by the rather unfortunate title of his most important work, The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), which misleading, insofar as it suggests that the book is just a theory of the “leisure class.” What the book provides is in fact a perfectly general theory of class, not to mention property, economic development, and social evolution. It is, in other words, a system of (...) theory that rivals Marx’s historical materialism with respect to scope, generality and explanatory power. Furthermore, it is a system of theory whose central predictions, with respect to the development of capitalism and the possibilities for emancipatory social change, have proven to be essentially correct. When stacked up against Marx’s prognostications, this success clearly provides the basis for what might best be described as an invidious comparison. (shrink)

I. Logica. Philosophia naturalis.--II. Metaphysica. Ethica.

Moral responsibility requires that we are in control of what we do. Many contemporary accounts of responsibility cash out this control in terms of abilities and hold that the relevant abilities are strong abilities, like general abilities. This paper raises a problem for strong abilities views: an agent can plausibly be morally responsible for an action or omission, despite lacking any strong abilities to do the relevant thing. It then offers a way forward for ability‐based views, arguing that very weak (...) abilities can form the basis of moral responsibility for both actions and omissions. (shrink)