This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV V.

Supererogation is the theory that some acts go beyond the call of duty. They are praiseworthy, but their omission is not blameworthy. Notice that supererogation has to do with praise and blame as well as with what is a duty or morally obligatory. Moral duty requires a moral system on the basis of which duty or obligation is assigned. Utilitarianism can provide a criterion of moral obligation, and it can also provide a criterion for moral praise and blame. However, there (...) is no necessity that the utilitarian criteria for praise and blame should be precisely correlated with its criteria of the morally obligatory and permissible. (shrink)

The negative consequences of physicians' failure to establish and maintain personal relationships with patients are at the heart of the humanistic crisis in medicine. To resolve this crisis, a new model of doctor-patient interaction is proposed, based on the ideas of Martin Buber's philosophy of dialogue. This model shows how the physican may successfully combine the personal (I-Thou) and impersonal (I-It) aspects of medicine in three stages. These Three Stages of Medical Dialogue include:1. An Initial Personal Meeting stage, which initiates (...) the doctor-patient relationship and involves mutual confirmation; 2. An Examination stage, which requires a shift from a personal to an impersonal style of interaction; 3. An Integration Through Dialogue or Healing Through Meeting Stage, which involves the integration of the impersonal medical data into the ongoing dialogue between doctor and patient, as a basis for shared decision-making. The use of the model, as well as common failures of doctor-patient dialogue are discussed. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

"The goal of philosophy is always the same, to assist men to understand themselves and thus to operate in the open, not wildly in the dark."--Isaiah BerlinThis volume of Isaiah Berlin's essays presents the sweep of his contributions to philosophy from his early participation in the debates surrounding logical positivism to his later work, which more evidently reflects his life-long interest in political theory, the history of ideas, and the philosophy of history. Here Berlin describes his view of the nature (...) of philosophy, and of its main task: to uncover the various models and presuppositions--the concepts and categories--that men bring to their existence and that help form that existence. Throughout, his writing is informed by his intense consciousness of the plurality of values, the nature of historical understanding, and of the fragility of human freedom in the face of rigid dogma. (shrink)

This is a collection of the most important writings of Oxford philosopher H.H. Price on the topics of psychical research and survival of death, collected from a wide variety of sources unavailable to most interested readers. Included are discussions of telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, precognition, hauntings and apparitions, the impact of psychical research on western philosophy and science, and what afterlife is probably like. Few twentieth century English-speaking philosophers have written much on these topics. Of those who did so and whose (...) writings have not been collected and published in a single source, H.H. Price was the most important. (shrink)

This work is organized alphabetically and more like a dictionary than an encyclopedia.

Originally published in 1923, this book presents a study regarding the fundamental nature of ethical principles. The text constitutes an attempt to 'return to the Greek tradition in its method of studying ethics, the tradition of considering ethical questions in very close connection with politics'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in philosophy and ethics.

In his Metrica, Hero provides four procedures for finding the area of a circular segment (with b the base of the segment and h its height): an Ancient method for when the segment is smaller than a semicircle, $$(b + h)/2 \, \cdot \, h$$ ( b + h ) / 2 · h ; a Revision, $$(b + h)/2 \, \cdot \, h + (b/2)^{2} /14$$ ( b + h ) / 2 · h + ( b / 2 (...) ) 2 / 14 ; a quasi-Archimedean method (said to be inspired by the quadrature of the parabola) for cases where b is more than triple h, $${\raise0.5ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 4$} \kern-0.1em/\kern-0.15em \lower0.25ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 3$}}(h \, \cdot \, b/2)$$ 4 / 3 ( h · b / 2 ) ; and a method of Subtraction using the Revised method, for when it is larger than a semicircle. He gives superficial arguments that the Ancient method presumes $$\pi = 3$$ π = 3 and the Revision, $$\pi = {\raise0.5ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle {22}$} \kern-0.1em/\kern-0.15em \lower0.25ex\hbox{$\scriptstyle 7$}}$$ π = 22 / 7. We are left with many questions. How ancient is the Ancient? Why did anyone think it worked? Why would anyone revise it in just this way? In addition, why did Hero think the Revised method did not work when $$b > 3\;h$$ b > 3 h? I show that a fifth century BCE Uruk tablet employs the Ancient method, but possibly with very strange consequences, and that a Ptolemaic Egyptian papyrus that checks this method by comparing the area of a circle calculated from the sum of a regular inscribed polygon and the areas of the segments on its sides as determined by the Ancient method with the area of the circle as calculated from its diameter correctly sees that the calculations do not quite gel in the case of a triangle but do in the case of a square. Both traditions probably could also calculate the area of a segment on an inscribed regular polygon by subtracting the area of the polygon from the area of the circle and dividing by the number of sides of the polygon. I then derive two theorems about pairs of segments, that the reviser of the Ancient method should have known, that explain each method, why they work when they do and do not when they do not, and which lead to a curious generalization of the Revised method. Hero’s comment is right, but not for the reasons he gives. I conclude with an exploration of Hero’s restrictions of the Revised method and Hero’s two alternative methods. (shrink)

A generalization of Weinberg’s nonlinear quantum theory is used to model a reported violation of the predictions of orthodox quantum theory.

And at the other extreme and in a somewhat different sense, a realistic metaphysician in, say, the Aristotelian tradition would be equally insistent that he must be able to consider and talk about beings or things or entities just as such, about being qua being, in other words. And he too would mean to employ such terms in a way that would be all-inclusive and all-embracing. For he would say that there is literally nothing--unless it be just nothing--which could not (...) be said to be in some sense or other, or to be something or other. That is to say, outside being there is nothing. And this, as everyone knows, is simply the basis for Aristotle's celebrated denial that being can be a genus. (shrink)

Non-Congnitivism relies for its defense upon g e moore's open question argument for a naturalistic fallacy. But this argument is invalid as applied to real definitions, Which are not analytic truths. G e moore's own conclusions about goodness are definitions in this sense. A definition of the good is possible. A valid one will allow for the non-Cognitivist's points that goodness reflects some pro-Attitude, That goodness is supervenient, And that goodness cannot be equated with the properties of a thing. An (...) aristotelian, Naturalist definition in terms of a thing's natural perfections or potentialities meets these criteria while also making goodness knowable and objective. (staff). (shrink)

Le XXe siècle a produit les formes les plus radicales du mal en politique, poussant à un degré inédit dans l’Histoire la négation de l’humanité de certains groupes, qui a conduit à la perpétration des plus grands crimes de masse jamais commis. Par un paradoxe apparent, il a produit également des formes inédites de négation du crime, constituées en véritables idéologies, formant..