Abstract The article argues that a consideration of the idea, common in ancient ethical theory, that virtue is a skill or craft, reveals that some common construals of it are mistaken. The analogy between virtue and skill is not meant to suggest that virtue is an unreflective habit of practised action. Rather what interests ancient ethical theorists is the intellectual structure of a skill, one demanding grasp of the principles defining the field and an ability to reflect on the justification (...) of particular actions. This is brought out with reference particularly to the discussion of virtue as analogous with skill in Plato's early Socratic dialogues. The demands made of the virtuous agent by philosophers who regard virtue as analogous to skill are akin to the demands made by more recent theories of morality which demand that the moral agent be able to reflect on her practices, extract the principles that these depend on, and produce justification when needed. This point about ancient ethical theories enables us to appreciate their distance from modern versions of ?virtue ethics? ? which stress the importance of the traditions and contexts within which the content of the virtues is learned, and place less importance on the need for intellectual justification. The type of virtue ethics defended by Alasdair Maclntyre provides an instructive example of this contrasting kind of theory. (shrink)

Epistemic permissivism is the view that it is possible for two people to rationally hold incompatible attitudes toward some proposition on the basis of one body of evidence. In this paper, I defend a particular version of permissivism – unacknowledged permissivism (UP) – which says that permissivism is true, but that no one can ever rationally believe that she is in a permissive case. I show that counter to what virtually all authors who have discussed UP claim, UP is an (...) attractive view: it is compatible with the intuitive motivations for permissivism and avoids a significant challenge to permissivism: the arbitrariness objection. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I propose a division of the literature on natural kinds into metaphysical worries, semantic worries, and methodological worries. I argue that the latter set of worries, which concern how classification influences scientific practices, should occupy centre stage in philosophy of science discussions about natural kinds. I apply this methodological framework to the problems of classifying chemical species and nanomaterials. I show that classification in nanoscience differs from classification in chemistry because the latter relies heavily on compositional identity, whereas the (...) former must consider additional properties, namely, size, shape, and surface chemistry. I use this difference to argue for a scale-dependent theory of scientific classification. _1_ Introduction _2_ The Methodological Problem of Kinds _3_ Chemical Kindhood: Reactivity, Microstructure, and the Structure–Property Paradigm _4_ Scale-Dependence and Nanoscale Kinds _5_ Conclusion. (shrink)

In response to the lack of empirical studies examining the internal disclosure behavior in the Chinese context, this study tested a whistleblowing -decision-making process among employees in the Chinese banking industry. For would-be whistleblowers, positive affect and organizational ethical culture were hypothesized to enhance the expected efficacy of their whistleblowing intention, by providing collective norms concerning legitimate, management-sanctioned behavior. Questionnaire surveys were collected from 364 employees in 10 banks in the Hangzhou City, China. By and large, the findings supported the (...) hypotheses. Issues of whistleblowing in the Chinese context and implications were discussed. (shrink)

This essay explores the question of how to be good. My starting point is a thesis about moral worth that I’ve defended in the past: roughly, that an action is morally worthy if and only it is performed for the reasons why it is right. While I think that account gets at one important sense of moral goodness, I argue here that it fails to capture several ways of being worthy of admiration on moral grounds. Moral goodness is more multi-faceted. (...) My title is intended to capture that multi-facetedness: the essay examines saintliness, heroism, and sagacity. The variety of our common-sense moral ideals underscores the inadequacy of any one account of moral admirableness, and I hope to illuminate the distinct roles these ideals play in our everyday understanding of goodness. Along the way, I give an account of what makes actions heroic, of whether such actions are supererogatory, and of what, if anything, is wrong with moral deference. At the close of the essay, I begin to explore the flipside of these ideals: villainy. (shrink)

Metaphysics of Science is the philosophical study of key concepts that figure prominently in science and that, prima facie, stand in need of clarification. It is also concerned with the phenomena that correspond to these concepts. Exemplary topics within Metaphysics of Science include laws of nature, causation, dispositions, natural kinds, possibility and necessity, explanation, reduction, emergence, grounding, and space and time. Metaphysics of Science is a subfield of both metaphysics and the philosophy of science—that is, it can be allocated to (...) either, but it exhausts neither. Unlike metaphysics simpliciter, Metaphysics of Science is not primarily concerned with metaphysical questions that may already arise from everyday phenomena such as what makes a thing (a chair, a desk) the very thing it is, what its identity criteria are, out of which parts is it composed, whether it remains the same if we exchange a couple of its parts, and so forth. Nor is it concerned with the concrete entities (superstrings, molecules, genes, and so forth) postulated by specific sciences; these issues are the subject matter of the special philosophies of science (for example, of physics, of chemistry, of biology). Metaphysics of Science is concerned with more abstract and general concepts that inform all of these sciences. Many of these concepts are interwoven with each other. For example, metaphysicians of science inquire whether dispositionality, lawhood, and causation can be accounted for in nonmodal terms; whether laws of nature presuppose the existence of natural kinds; and whether the properties of macrolevel objects supervene on dispositional or nondispositional properties. This article surveys the scope (section 1), historical origin (section 2), exemplary subject matters (section 4), and methodology (section 5) of Metaphysics of Science, as well as the motivation that drives it (section 3). (shrink)

Although Gilbert Ryle published on a wide range of topics in philosophy (notably in the history of philosophy and in philosophy of language), including a series of lectures centred on philosophical dilemmas, a series of articles on the concept of thinking, and a book on Plato, The Concept of Mind remains his best known and most important work. Through this work, Ryle is thought to have accomplished two major tasks. First, he was seen to have put the final nail in (...) the coffin of Cartesian dualism. Second, as he himself anticipated, he is thought to have argued on behalf of, and suggested as dualism's replacement, the doctrine known as philosophical (and sometimes analytical) behaviourism. Sometimes known as an “ordinary language”, sometimes as an “analytic” philosopher, Ryle—even when mentioned in the same breath as Wittgenstein and his followers—is considered to be on a different, somewhat idiosyncratic (and difficult to characterise), philosophical track. (shrink)

This lively and accessible book focuses on the philosophy and argument of Plato's writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy and the general themes of his thinking. It discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. It also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude towards women, and towards homosexual love. It explores Plato's claim that virtue is (...) sufficient for happiness and touches on his arguments for the immorality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe. (shrink)

Trust and corporation (extracts) / by F.W. Maitland -- Respublica Christiana -- by J.N. Figgis -- Society and state / by R.M. MacIver -- The discredited state / by E. Barker -- Conflicting social obligations / by G.D.H. Cole -- Community is a process / by M.P. Follett -- The eruption of the group / by E. Barker -- The masses in a representative democracy / by M. Oakeshott -- The atavism of social justice / by F.A. von Hayek -- (...) Collective entities and moral rights / by V. van Dyke -- Capitalism, citizenship and community / by S. Macedo -- Liberalism and the politicization of ethnicity / by W. Kymlicka -- Are there any cultural rights? / by C. Kukathas -- The civil society argument / by M. Walzer. (shrink)

This collection of papers explores one of the central debates in the field of bioethics in the new century. It evaluates the controversy between the claim that there is a common morality accepted by all and the opposing view that there are different moral visions and moral rationalities, within which complex bioethical issues demand a solution. Contributions within this volume offer different approaches and perspectives on the pursuit of global ethics in the new century. They are organized under five major (...) themes. The first theme explores the different plausible understandings of the foundations of bioethics and contemporary reflections on the nature and role of moral theory. The second theme analyses the impact of moral loss and moral diversity on the character of bioethics and the search for alternative perspectives in post-traditional and post-modern societies. The third theme examines a number of theoretical issues raised by concrete examples of bioethnological applications, which bear importantly on contemporary debates between the possibility and impossibility of global bioethics. The fourth theme discusses examples of moral conflicts and dilemmas in everyday health care practice regarding the permissible treatment of humans by humans under different ethical perspectives and cultural traditions. The fifth theme explores alternative suggestions for opening up new modes of self-understanding and new strategies for bioethical exploration in the new century. The volume is an important work of reference for philosophers, moral theologians, ethicists, counsellors, doctors, nurses, sociologists, journalists, health care professionals, public policy makers and everyone who is interested in the profound ethical issues arising from modern technological advancements which are not only transforming our lives but are also demanding urgent ethical decision-making and `pragmatic' solutions from a cross-cultural perspective. (shrink)

We give Scott sentences for certain computable groups, and we use index set calculations as a way of checking that our Scott sentences are as simple as possible. We consider finitely generated groups and torsion-free abelian groups of finite rank. For both kinds of groups, the computable ones all have computable \ Scott sentences. Sometimes we can do better. In fact, the computable finitely generated groups that we have studied all have Scott sentences that are “computable d-\” sentence and a (...) computable \ sentence). In [9], this was shown for the finitely generated free groups. Here we show it for all finitely generated abelian groups, and for the infinite dihedral group. Among the computable torsion-free abelian groups of finite rank, we focus on those of rank 1. These are exactly the additive subgroups of \. We show that for some of these groups, the computable \ Scott sentence is best possible, while for others, there is a computable d-\ Scott sentence. (shrink)

This paper explores the theory of freedom that Emilie du Châtelet advances in her essay “On Freedom.” Using contemporary terminology, we can characterize this theory as a version of agent-causal compatibilism. More specifically, the theory has the following elements: (a) freedom consists in the power to act in accordance with one’s choices, (b) freedom requires the ability to suspend desires and master passions, (c) freedom requires a power of self-motion in the agent, and (d) freedom is compatible with moral necessity (...) but not with physical necessity. While these elements may at first appear disparate, the paper shows that they fit together quite well. The resulting theory is a surprising combination of doctrines that appear to be based on Samuel Clarke’s libertarian account of free will and doctrines that are reminiscent of the compatibilist accounts of John Locke, Anthony Collins, Gottfried Leibniz, and Thomas Hobbes. (shrink)

Abstract: Hegel's theory of tragedy is often considered to be primarily a theory of the objective powers involved in tragic conflicts—for Hegel, these are paradigmatically competing ethical notions—and of the rationality which underlies and drives such conflicts. Such a view follows naturally from a close reading of Hegel's discussion of classical Greek tragedy in his Lectures on Aesthetics. However, this view gives rise to the question of whether Hegel's theory of tragedy can account for the significance of tragic experience, in (...) particular the experience of tragic suffering; it has been argued repeatedly that it cannot. In contrast, I want to suggest in this paper that a theory of tragic experience can be derived from Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This Hegelian theory of tragic experience, I argue, should be understood as complementing rather than challenging Hegel's theory of objective tragic conflict. (shrink)

This volume, which follows hard on the heels of publication of the final volume of the 26-volume set of Kierkegaard's writings , allows its readers 'to find their way quickly to relevant sources of help,' elucidates Kierkegaard's 'central concepts,' and demonstrates the contemporary relevance of his ideas.

In [3], two different effective versions of Borel embedding are defined. The first, called computable embedding, is based on uniform enumeration reducibility, while the second, called Turing computable embedding, is based on uniform Turing reducibility. While [3] focused mainly on computable embeddings, the present paper considers Turing computable embeddings. Although the two notions are not equivalent, we can show that they behave alike on the mathematically interesting classes chosen for investigation in [3]. We give a “Pull-back Theorem”, saying that if (...) Φ is a Turing computable embedding of K into K’, then for any computable infinitary sentence φ in the language of K’, we can find a computable infinitary sentence φ* in the language of K such that for all. (shrink)

There is a Turing computable embedding $\Phi $ of directed graphs $\mathcal {A}$ in undirected graphs. Moreover, there is a fixed tuple of formulas that give a uniform effective interpretation; i.e., for all directed graphs $\mathcal {A}$, these formulas interpret $\mathcal {A}$ in $\Phi $. It follows that $\mathcal {A}$ is Medvedev reducible to $\Phi $ uniformly; i.e., $\mathcal {A}\leq _s\Phi $ with a fixed Turing operator that serves for all $\mathcal {A}$. We observe that there is a graph G (...) that is not Medvedev reducible to any linear ordering. Hence, G is not effectively interpreted in any linear ordering. Similarly, there is a graph that is not interpreted in any linear ordering using computable $\Sigma _2$ formulas. Any graph can be interpreted in a linear ordering using computable $\Sigma _3$ formulas. Friedman and Stanley [4] gave a Turing computable embedding L of directed graphs in linear orderings. We show that there is no fixed tuple of $L_{\omega _1\omega }$ -formulas that, for all G, interpret the input graph G in the output linear ordering $L$. Harrison-Trainor and Montalbán [7] have also shown this, by a quite different proof. (shrink)

The analysis of video-recorded interaction consists of various professionalized ways of seeing participant behavior through multimodal, co-operative, or intercorporeal lenses. While these perspectives are often adopted simultaneously, each creates a different view of the human body and interaction. Moreover, microanalysis is often produced through local practices of sense-making that involve the researchers’ bodies. It has not been fully elaborated by previous research how adopting these different ways of seeing human behavior influences both what is seen from a video and how (...) it is seen, as well as the way the interpretation of the data ultimately unfolds in the interaction between researchers. In this article, we provide a theoretical-methodological discussion of the microanalytic research process. We explore how it differs from “seeing” affect in interaction either as a co-operative and multimodal action or as an intercorporeal experience. First, we introduce the multimodal conversation analytic, co-operative, and intercorporeal approaches to microanalysis. Second, we apply and compare these practices to a video-recorded interaction of a romantic couple. Furthermore, we examine a video-recorded episode of us, the researchers, reflecting on our analytic observations about this interaction. We suggest that adopting a multimodal and co-operative perspective constructs affect as co-produced and displayed through observable action, while an intercorporeal perspective produces affect as an embodied and experienced phenomenon. While the former enables locating affect in a specific moment and identifiable body parts, the latter facilitates recognizing the experienced side of affect. These different modes of professional vision complement one another in capturing affect in interaction while being fundamentally used in local interactions between the researchers. (shrink)

The fact that humans have a special relationship to each other insofar as they belong in the same species is often taken to be a morally relevant difference between humans and other animals, one which justifies a greater moral status for all humans, regardless of their individual capacities. I give some reasons why this kind of relationship is not an appropriate ground for differential treatment of humans and nonhumans. I then argue that even if relationships do matter morally species membership (...) cannot justify a difference in moral status. This has important implications because it removes one barrier to giving animals greater moral status. (shrink)

This volume launches a new series of contemporary conversations about scientific classification. Most philosophical conversations about kinds have focused centrally or solely on natural kinds, that is, kinds whose existence is not dependent on the scientific process of synthesis. This volume refocuses conversations about classification on unnatural, or synthetic, kinds via extensive study of three paradigm cases of unnatural kinds: nanomaterials, stem cells, and synthetic biology.

Synesthesia is a fascinating phenomenon which has captured the imagination of scientists and artists alike. This inherited condition gives rise to a kind of 'merging of the senses. The Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia brings together a broad body of knowledge about this conditions into one definitive state-of-the-art handbook.

Edited by one of the most renowned scholars in the field, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader is a unique and accessible introduction to the richness of ancient philosophy. Featuring a topical--as opposed to chronological--organization, this text introduces students to the wide range of approaches and traditions in ancient philosophy. In each section Annas presents the ancient debates on a particular philosophical topic, drawing on a greater diversity of ancient sources than a chronological approach allows. The book is divided (...) into six sections: Fate and Freedom; Reason and Emotion; Knowledge, Belief, and Skepticism; Metaphysical Questions; How Should You Live?; and Society and the State. Annas includes a generous selection of the works of Plato and Aristotle, as well as those of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Skeptics. She also includes selections from less familiar philosophers and from authors in whose works philosophical issues arise, such as poets, medical writers, historians, and Jewish and Christian writers. The volume features biographical sketches of the philosophers, a timeline, and short discussions of the major movements in ancient philosophy. An excellent text for courses in ancient philosophy and history of philosophy, Voices of Ancient Philosophy: An Introductory Reader will also be of interest to scholars and general readers. (shrink)

In all the literature about ethical dilemmas facing the accounting practitioner little attention has been paid to those which arise from the accountant's role in the process of accounting regulation. This treatment explores that role in the light of differing national modes of accounting regulation, economic impact issues in accounting regulation, some ethical principles and a number of different national illustrations. John Blake is Professor of Accounting in the Department of Accounting and Financial Services at the University of Central Lancashire, (...) Preston PR1 2HE, in which Catherine Gowthorpe is Principal Lecturer, while Julia Clarke is a member of the Department of Business Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Building, Aytoun Street, Manchester M1 3GH. (shrink)

Studies of linguistic synaesthesias in English have shown a range of fine-grained language mechanisms governing the associations between colours on the one hand, and graphemes, phonemes and words on the other. However, virtually nothing is known about how synaesthetic colouring might operate in non-alphabetic systems. The current study shows how synaesthetic speakers of Mandarin Chinese come to colour the logographic units of their language. Both native and non-native Chinese speakers experienced synaesthetic colours for characters, and for words spelled in the (...) Chinese spelling systems of Pinyin and Bopomo. We assessed the influences of lexical tone and Pinyin/Bopomo spelling and showed that synaesthetic colours are assigned to Chinese words in a non-random fashion. Our data show that Chinese-speaking synaesthetes with very different native languages can exhibit both differences and similarities in the ways in which they come to colour their Chinese words. (shrink)

The article presents the results of research on the relationship between social support and self-care of people with myocardial infarction. 127 patients treated in a rehabilitation centre participated in the study. The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviours and the Self-care Questionnaire developed by the author, were used. The findings suggest that persons receiving little support are characterised by lower level of self-care than people with medium and high level of support. No such difference was noted between people with medium and (...) high support level. This suggests that social support is of considerable importance for the changes in the level of self-care only in the case of people previously receiving little support. The research also indicates that informational support is related to higher level of self-care whereas instrumental support is related to lower level of self-care. Emotional support was significant only for the care for social functioning. (shrink)

Leibniz’s correspondence with Antoine Arnauld is one of the clearest and most comprehensive expressions of Leibniz’s philosophy in the so-called middle period. This chapter will explore the philosophical content of this correspondence. It will concentrate on four of the most central topics: (a) complete concepts and contingency, (b) substance and body, (c) causation, and (d) the special status of rational souls in God’s plan.

There are considerable gaps in our knowledge of how children develop abstract language. In this paper, we tested the Affective Embodiment Account, which proposes that emotional information is more essential for abstract than concrete conceptual development. We tested the recognition memory of 7- and 8-year-old children, as well as a group of adults, for abstract and concrete words which differed categorically in valence. Word valence significantly interacted with concreteness in hit rates of both children and adults, such that effects of (...) valence were only found in memory for abstract words. The pattern of valence effects differed for children and adults: children remembered negative words more accurately than neutral and positive words, whereas adults remembered negative and positive words more accurately than neutral words. In addition, signal detection analysis revealed that children were better able to discriminate negative than positive words, regardless of concreteness. The findings suggest that the memory accuracy of 7- and 8-year-old children is influenced by emotional information, particularly for abstract words. The results are in agreement with the Affective Embodiment Account and with multimodal accounts of children’s lexical development. (shrink)

This essay aims to provide a philosophical analysis of the Chinese concept of cheng (sincerity) as a political virtue that could be incorporated to ground a duty of civility in liberal deliberative democracy. It is argued here that the virtue of sincerity is an essential feature of the liberal political culture taken for granted by Rawls in his theory of public reason. Ideal procedures and public discourse are not sufficient to generate civic virtues. The goal of this essay is to (...) show how, in the Chinese conception, the root of civility lies in the virtue of Cheng, which can provide the moral grounding for a duty of civility that is essential to sustaining the stability and overcoming the problem of defection from support of the common good in pluralistic states. (shrink)

In this text, the authors confront the many issues which can confuse, frighten or ensnare young people as they struggle to make their own decisions in a world where the hard edges of moral choice have become increasingly blurred. Issues such as drug abuse and abortion are explored in their secular context, while also being placed under the microscope of both Biblical and church teaching. The positions of the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Prebyterian and Methodist churches are examined through (...) their own statements and publications. (shrink)

Includes texts by Leibniz and Wolff, translated from French, German and Latin.

The more empirical, ‘naturalistic’ turn in the approach of many contemporary philosophers, their search for ‘theories’ and their appeal to general ‘theoretical’ considerations apparently continuous with natural science...puts [contemporary] philosophy...farther from the spirit as well as the letter of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophical problems. He thought that ‘philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes, and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics, and leads (...) the philosopher into complete darkness.’1 A report on the main activity in the philosophy of mind in the period since [the mid-sixties when Wittgensteinian influences could still be discerned] would therefore be a report of activity within what Wittgenstein would regard as ‘darkness’; it would not be a report of developments and extensions of his own ideas during that period. (1983, 320). (shrink)

Recently, political models which employ lottery-selection instead of ballot voting have been proposed. Proponents argue that such lottocratic models can improve the representation of the population and reduce undemocratic influences. In this paper, I argue that these proposals also satisfy the egalitarian requirement of democracy. I claim that having an equal chance to be selected by lot is equally egalitarian as having an equally weighed vote for two reasons: first, having a chance to be selected by lot satisfies the requirement (...) for political justice better than electoral democracy, and second, it provides citizens with equal political influence and not merely equal impact. (shrink)