The relationship between Rand and Branden changed over eighteen yaears from student and teacher, to friends, to colleagues, to lovers and finally antagonists.

Envy and resentment are generally thought to be unpleasant and unethical emotions which ought to be condemned. I argue that both envy and resentment, in some important forms, are moral emotions connected with concern for justice, understood in terms of desert and entitlement. They enable us to recognise injustice, work as a spur to acting against it and connect us to others. Thus, we should accept these emotions as part of the ethical life.

Aristotle's remarks about the differences between the sexes have become infamous for their implications for the social status of women. In his observations on female biology, Aristotle claims that "the female nature is, as it were, a deformity." In describing women's role in the public sphere, he claims that women are naturally subordinate because, while they possess a deliberative faculty, that capacity is "without authority." While both claims express the "inferiority" of female bodies/women relative to male bodies/men, it is not (...) self-evident that the defects Aristotle identifies in female biology have cognitive or moral manifestations that would justify the rule of men over women in political life. Marguerite Deslauriers here aims to construct a coherent picture of Aristotle's views on sexual and gender-based difference from these remarks and to show the extent to which his views on female biology and women's role in politics are causally connected. Without exculpating Aristotle from charges of misogyny, Deslauriers contextualizes his explanations of the role and origin of female animals in his biology and the role of women in his political philosophy; she shows how Aristotle developed these views and the importance they hold for his wider philosophical commitments. She then explores how Aristotle might have seen the link between the physiology of sex and the bearing it has on political life. She ultimately argues that in Aristotle's conception of sexual difference in biology and politics, there is a tension between his view of the inferiority of female bodies and women and his commitment to the idea that females and women are valuable both for generation and for the political life characteristic of human beings. In this tension she finds a difference between Aristotle and his predecessors: while previous accounts associate sexual difference with affliction, Aristotle sees sexual difference as a benefit, both to a species and a political community. This volume will be of interest to philosophers and students interested in ancient philosophy, feminist philosophy, as well as those studying moral and political philosophy. (shrink)

Early feminist or pro-woman works often combine the claim that the rational souls of men and women are the same with an argument for the superiority of women. This article considers two such works, Lucrezia Marinella's The Nobility and Excellence of Women and the Defects and Vices of Men (Venice, 1601 [1999]) and Marguerite Buffet's In Praise of Illustrious Learned Women, both Ancient and Modern (Paris, 1668), in order to show the continuities and distinctive features of feminist arguments for (...) superiority, to emphasize the differences in the conceptions of reason and physiology that distinguish them, and to demonstrate that claims of superiority persisted even as those defending women's worth began to adopt egalitarian positions. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn the debate about the worth of women in sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy three pro-woman authors of the period, Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and Arcangela Tarabotti, develop...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:If “Reality is the Best Metaphor,” It Must Be VirtualMarguerite R. Waller (bio)What is the search for the next great compelling application but a search for the human identity?—Doug Coupland, Microserfs... we can look forward to a richly textured and complex cyberspace, where we are at all times human, and can become bits of pixel dust flying through a virtual landscape.—3-D, multiuser, interactive, on-line virtual reality producer“Avatars are Next,” (...) the June 1996 issue of Wired announces on its cover, above a glossy foldout of Bill Gates in bathing trunks floating on a lemon yellow air mattress in a sensuous Hockney-blue swimming pool. “Mr. Bill goes Hollywood! Special Gatesfold Issue,” reads the caption underneath the (photomontaged) naked torso. The United States Congress’s attempt in February 1996 to conceptualize the Internet as an incitement to indecent sexual conduct (in Section 507 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, the so-called Computer Decency Act) is clearly the lampooned subtext of this juxtaposition of sexualized body with the concept of the avatar. The antithesis of sensuous, avatars are bandwidth-conserving, virtual figures that take the place of users’ physical bodies in the three-dimensional, interactive, multiuser virtual environments that software developers in 1996 insist will be the telos of the development of the World Wide Web. The Wired cover implies that the nerd community finds Congress’s association of digital media with sex ridiculous (however flattering they may find it to be constructed as sexually dangerous). Not unusually, sexuality is being invoked by the state as a justification for extending its own reach (and the corporate interests it represents).But the sex/gender politics of Net free speech advocates are not necessarily more progressive. As feminist commentator Laura Miller argues in “Women and Children First: Gender and the Settling of the Electronic Frontier,” the metaphor of a frontier beyond the jurisdiction of Congress, deployed by opponents of federal regulation, draws upon a conventional construction of gender that threatens to reinscribe women as victims, reinforcing “the power imbalance between the sexes, with its roots in the concept of women as property, constantly under siege and requiring the vigilant protection of their male owners” [53]. The unintended consequence of this conceptualization, she worries, is that “the threat of regulation is built into the very mythos used to conceptualize the Net by its defenders” [50].My worry, therefore, embraces both sides of the debate over free speech on the Net. The skirmish between Big Brother and the software pioneers seems to be shaping up rhetorically as a classic fraternal competition “between men” (Sedgwick). We may read it as a contest between fundamentally congruent “male” subject positions, both of which incline to disempower “female” subject positions and both of which stand to increase their [End Page 90] own political and economic capital by the appearance of a conflict. The power-producing relationality at play in this turf war, however, simultaneously threatens to subvert the claims of each position to its own, independent ontology. Both parties, therefore, can be expected compulsively to deny their relational status. John Perry Barlowe insists, in his “Declaration of Independence in Cyberspace”: “Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are based on matter. There is no matter here.”It is this more subtle metaphysical issue, the occlusion of relation, implicated in but not reducible to, the constructions of sexuality and gender deployed by both Netizens and Congresspeople, that I find the most pressing issue in designs, uses, and discussions of cyberspace. I will argue that, in fact, the current wave of Internet development (both practically and discursively) is in some sense driven by a desire to make cyberspace safe for essentialist subjectivities of whatever ideological/political persuasion. I will unfold this argument in terms of a certain notion of addiction. My interest is not “cyberaddiction” per se, in the sense of individuals who spend what they or their associates consider too much time on-line, but rather the construction of cyberspace—both rhetorically and electronically—as a clean, clear realm in which we can transcend positionality while remaining (or becoming more fully) “ourselves.” I am not, that... (shrink)

Iris Marion Young argues we cannot understand others' experiences by imagining ourselves in their place or in terms of symmetrical reciprocity (1997a). For Young, reciprocity expresses moral respect and asymmetry arises from people's greatly varying life histories and social positions. La Caze argues there are problems with Young's articulation of asymmetrical reciprocity in terms of wonder and the gift. By discussing friendship and political representation, she shows how taking self-respect into account complicates asymmetrical reciprocity.

A collection of essays argues that philosophy is an essential element of human life--a force that shapes human character and national culture and destiny--and offers the rational philosophy of Objectivism as an alternative.

The authors respond to a letter by Mitchell Berger in the March‐April 2024 issue of the Hastings Center Report concerning their essay “Securing the Trustworthiness of the FDA to Build Public Trust in Vaccines.”.

Despite the importance of discussions over the epistemic role that artificially intelligent decision support systems ought to play, there is currently a lack of these discussions in both the AI literature and the epistemology literature. My goal in this paper is to rectify this by proposing an account of the epistemic role of AI decision support systems in medicine and discussing what this epistemic role means with regard to how these systems ought to be utilized. In particular, I argue that (...) AI decision support systems are not epistemic superiors, inferiors, or peers. Instead, I recommend that they be classified in an epistemic category of their own, as “epistemic nudges.” With my proposed account of the epistemic role of AI decision support systems, I aim to provide answers the following two questions: 1. How ought disagreements between a clinician and an AI decision support system be handled? 2. How ought responsibility and accountability be allocated when an AI decision support system used by a human clinician in decision-making results in harm? (shrink)

Czech translation of Marguerite Léna’s Choisir l’ Europe: Constantin Sigov et la dignité humaine.

This work examines Aristotle's discussions of definition in his logical works and the Metaphysics, and argues for the importance of definitions of simple ...

In the treatise called La nobiltà et l’eccellenza delle donne co’ diffetti et mancamenti de gli uomini Lucrezia Marinella claims that women are superior to men. She argues that men are excessively hot, and that heat in a high degree is detrimental to the intellectual and moral capacities of a person. The aim of this paper is to set out Marinella’s views on temperature differences in the bodies of men and women and the effects of bodily constitution on the capacities (...) necessary for political deliberation and rule. I situate Marinella’s argument in the context of an ongoing debate about physiological differences between the sexes, begun in antiquity and extending into the Renaissance. That debate is important for several reasons: as part of a broader discussion of the nature and worth of women, as determining influential interpretations of ancient authorities on matters of physiology, and as anticipating later discussions of the relation between the sexed body and political roles. This paper considers Marinella in dialogue with a number of interlocutors, elements of whose work can be found in her own: Aristotle, Mario Equicola, Galeazzo Flavio Capra, Ludovico Domenichi and Torquato Tasso. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 71-75 [Access article in PDF] Response to Kingsley Price's "How Can Music Seem to be Emotional" Marguerite Nering Calgary, Canada Kingsley Price argues that music, since it is not personal, cannot be emotional but can only seem emotional. In an earlier draft of this paper he described it more fully: "Music is not a person, cannot possibly harbor an inward life, (...) and cannot possibly be emotional." He then sets out to discover how music, since for him it is not emotional, can seem to be so. Through a step-by-step process of philosophical inquiry, he first looks within perception and not finding an answer there, searches without, mainly focusing on meaning and Susanne Langer's theory of emotion and music. His search is unrewarded, leaving him to conclude that the answer to his question remains an incomprehensible mystery.His logic at first seems impervious to dispute. Had he not strictly limited his meaning of music and emotion-particularly emotion-it may have simplified responding to his query. For him, "music" refers to instrumental music that is heard or perceived. "Emotion" means conscious feelings we find ourselves in when undergoing emotion.The major question one must ask is whether his basic premise is accurate. Is he correct in stating that music unequivocally is not emotional but only seems so? [End Page 71] Is he correct in stating that music does not harbor an inward life? After all, he is talking about instrumental music that is perceived. While one cannot deny that notated music on paper is not emotional, does this hold for instrumental music being performed and transmitted? The source is a live human, someone who has an inward life, or at least did have at the time of production. The receptor is alive and has an inward life. The human source is sending living music imbued with emotion and energy. The airwaves transport these vibrations. Can we really say that the living or live music reaching the receiver's ears is not carrying real emotion?Returning to Price's analysis, we find he looks first at perception itself, in this case sense perception, and determines that it has two major constituents: awareness and the object of awareness. He argues that awareness cannot seem to exist; it must exist. It is always simple; therefore, there can be no characteristic that makes it seeming and not real. I question whether the latter conclusion necessarily follows, that is, that reality is a consequence of simplicity, but I must agree that awareness by virtue of its existence must be real.Music heard is the object of awareness. He states that the distinction between seeming and reality does apply to some things-for example, to Macbeth seeing a dagger that really is not there-but declares that this cannot apply to music heard, for it actually exists. Does this mean that one cannot hear music that really is not there? The illusion should work for hearing if it works for vision. Back to his argument, because music heard exists, he reasons that one cannot say that the seeming emotionality in music can be traced to the character of the music that bears it. I wonder then how this would apply to a person playing music with real emotion for his or her own enjoyment? In this case the human receptor of music is also the human source of the music. They are one and the same, and this person of course has an inward personal life. Does this music only seem emotional or is it really emotional? It would make sense that it is really emotional.He then looks at whether the seemingness of emotionality can be traced to emotionality itself and deduces that it cannot. Emotions are real. If we feel joy, it is real joy we are feeling and not seeming joy. One cannot debate this. Again, however, I am not convinced of the seemingness of the emotionality of music. Because music comes from a living person, it is an extension... (shrink)

This paper considers the distinctions Aristotle draws (1) between the intellectual virtue of "phronêsis" and the moral virtues and (2) among the moral virtues, in light of his commitment to the reciprocity of the virtues. I argue that Aristotle takes the intellectual virtues to be numerically distinct hexeis from the moral virtues. By contrast, I argue, he treats the moral virtues as numerically one hexis, although he allows that they are many hexeis 'in being'. The paper has three parts. In (...) the first, I set out Aristotle's account of the structure of the faculties of the soul, and determine that desire is a distinct faculty. The rationality of a desire is not then a question of whether or not the faculty that produces that desire is rational, but rather a question of whether or not the object of the desire is good. In the second section I show that the reciprocity of "phronêsis" and the moral virtues requires this structure of the faculties. In the third section I show that the way in which Aristotle distinguishes the faculties requires that we individuate moral virtues according to the objects of the desires that enter into a given virtue, and with reference to the circumstances in which these desires are generated. I then explore what it might mean for the moral virtues to be different in being but not in number, given the way in which the moral virtues are individuated. I argue that Aristotle takes "phronêsis" and the political art to be a numerical unity in a particular way, and that he suggests that the moral virtues are, by analogy, the same kind of unity. (shrink)

Marie de Gournay, in a central argument in the pamphlet Égalité des hommes et des femmes [The Equality of Women and Men], offers an interpretation of an argument for equality that she attributes to ‘the School.’ I argue that Gournay is drawing on Aristotle’s Metaphysics to formulate an argument for the equality of women; that she does not temper that argument with claims for the superiority of women, which makes her unique for some time; and that her alleged misrepresentation of (...) her authorities – Aristotle in particular – is itself an interesting and suggestive phenomenon. Moreover, while some of her contemporaries would have agreed that the soul of a person has no sex, Gournay was unusual in arguing that the social implication of this was intellectual equality for women and men, just so long as education should be provided to women as well as men. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:A key factor in the decision to convert a publicly owned company to private status is the expectation that value will be created, providing the firm with rent. These rents have implications regarding the property rights of the firm’s capital-contributing constituencies. We identify and analyze the types of rent associated with the newly private firm. Compared to public firms, going private allows owners the potential to partition part of the residual risk to bond holders and employees, rendering them to be (...) co-residual risk bearers with owners. We propose that new promotion-based contracts with bond holders and employees, reflecting their particular investments, be negotiated as the firm migrates from public to private status. These contracts should acknowledge the firm’s intent to maximize shareholder value and its need to take the risks necessary to do so, but support that the firm’s survival not be undermined due to its possibly opportunistic owners. (shrink)

In her recent book, Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, Ann Murphy suggests that the philosophical imaginary, in particular that of contemporary continental philosophy, is imbued with images of violence. The concept of the philosophical imaginary is drawn from the work of Michèle Le Dœuff to explore the role of images of violence in philosophy. Murphy sets the language of violence, reflexivity, and critique against that of vulnerability, ambiguity and responsibility. Her concern is that images of violence have become and may (...) become more ‘neutralised, domesticated or eroticised’ in objectionable ways. There is no doubt Murphy has isolated and highlighted a striking feature of the continental imaginary in a clear and thoughtful way. My paper takes Murphy’s argument further by elaborating a Le Dœuffian argument that theorises the reversal of priority from violent language to the violence of language. I take Murphy’s injunction for attention and sensitivity seriously by examining the language of violence and exposing that which is unfamiliar, what has become incorporated and what is revealed by the language that is used. The language of the third Reich and the language of the Rwandan genocide will be briefly compared to demonstrate these points. Our responsibility is to recognise the use of euphemism and metaphor to sometimes cover and sometimes blatantly advertise the horrifying truth. The focus on violence in philosophical language can lead us away from the violence of genocidal language and other violent language that philosophers, like all responsible people, are called to witness. (shrink)