For centuries philosophers have wrestled with the dichotomy between individual freedom on the one hand and collective solidarity on the other. Yet today there is a growing realization that this template is fundamentally flawed. In this book, Mark Young embraces and advocates a more holistic concept of freedom; one which is not merely defined negatively but which positively provides the preconditions for individuals to actively exercise their autonomy and to flourish as human beings in the process. Young posits the (...) idea of 'freedom in community' and traces its origin back to Aristotle. Taking as his premise that humans are deeply social beings who live their lives intricately interwoven with each other, he examines what type of political community is relevant for us in this post-Classical, post-Enlightenment and, indeed, post-Existential world. Identifying the failure of traditional 'statist' models of politics, Young instead argues for a civil society: a globally interlinked and free set of liberal communities as the best context for nourishing human flourishing. In this way we can achieve a proper setting for Eudaimonia in a modern sense. (shrink)

Over the last thirty years, personal debt loads have increased dramatically. Lower income earners borrow money to purchase basic goods and services, so their debt is frequently non-discretionary. The impact of non-discretionary personal debt on debtors can be as, if not more, harmful than government regulations that have been declared unconstitutional. In this regard, the impact of personal debt is tantamount to the impact of a civil rights violation. What separates the impact of unconstitutional state action from that of personal (...) debt is the assumption that only the latter are the result of consensual transactions. Consent, however, is not a dyadic phenomenon, it exists in gradations. The quality of consent is weakened when the agent is making choices in response to pressures, and the empiricalquestion of the extent to which a consent transaction is unforced is distinct from the normative question of whether a transaction is legitimate, or fair. It is necessary to devise a new taxonomy of language to clearly distinguish the empirical and normative questions. This elucidates the fact that lower income people are under more pressure to borrow money than are upper income individuals to pay progressive rates of income tax. To argue that the latter are ‘coerced,’ is to admit that the low income individual’s decision to borrow is similarly forced. This admission suggests that a significant portion of citizens of market-based economies (notably Canada and the U.S.) are being forced to endure harms tantamount to civil rights violations. The admission also suggests that free markets harbour forces that undermine individual autonomy, and the absence of corrective state regulation exacerbates the problem. (shrink)

In Republic 8–9, Socrates describes four main kinds of vicious people, all of whose souls are “ruled” by an element other than reason, and in some of whom reason is said to be “enslaved.” What role does reason play in such souls? In this paper, I argue, based on Republic 8–9 and related passages, and in contrast to some common alternative views, that for Plato the “enslavement” of reason consists in this: instead of determining for itself what is good, (...) reason is forced to desire and pursue as good a goal determined by the soul’s ruler. (shrink)

Aristotle sometimes claims that the perception of special perceptibles by their proper sense is unerring. This claim is striking, since it might seem that we quite often misperceive things like colours, sounds and smells. Aristotle also claims that the perception of common perceptibles is more prone to error than the perception of special perceptibles. This is puzzling in its own right, and also places constraints on the interpretation of. I argue that reading Alexander of Aphrodisias on perceptual error can help (...) to make good sense of both of Aristotle’s claims. (shrink)

A primary criterion on which models of cognition are evaluated is their ability to fit empirical data. To understand the reason why a model yields a good or poor fit, it is necessary to determine the data‐fitting potential (i.e., flexibility) of the model. In the first part of this article, methods for comparing models and studying their flexibility are reviewed, with a focus on parameter space partitioning (PSP), a general‐purpose method for analyzing and comparing all classes of cognitive models. (...) PSP is then demonstrated in the second part of the article in which two connectionist models of speech perception (TRACE and ARTphone) are compared to learn how design differences affect model flexibility. (shrink)

Stephens and Feezell argue, in?The Ideal of the Stoic Sportsman?, that?one need not be a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy to refer to?stoic? conduct or a?stoic? approach to certain matters, because the vocabulary related to this apparently antiquarian view of life has seeped into our common language?. Nonetheless, Stephens and Feezell go on to give a scholarly account of Stoicism as it relates to athletic participation. Their account, in part, takes the form of a distinction between?simple Stoicism? and?sophisticated Stoicism?? the (...) former being a common, contemporary grasp of Stoic moral psychology; the latter being a more sophisticated and historically accurate grasp of Stoic moral psychology. In fleshing out their more sophisticated account, they disclose a paradox. Given the Stoic sufficiency thesis? i.e., that the sole good is virtue? the Stoic sportsman must be indifferent to failure or winning. Yet the Stoic sportsman must be sufficiently attached to the athletic experience to use it as a means of developing virtuous states of character. That they dub the paradox the?paradox of Stoic detachment?.?Curiosity? Paradox? Or psychological incoherence?? they ask. The aim of the present undertaking is a?soft? critique of Stephens and Feezell? soft, because the critique is not so much a critical rejection of the authors' view tout court. Instead, I aim to point out deficiencies with their account and expand on other points not fully elucidated in it. The most salient point I make is that what they deem paradoxical is not really paradoxical, once there is a more thorough account and clearer grasp of Stoic?detachment? (shrink)

Kristen R. Ghodsee has written a wide-ranging, highly readable, and commendably radical vindication of utopian thought and experimentation. Everyday Utopia is aimed at the educated lay reader—itself, perhaps, a utopian projection—rather than specialists. Nevertheless, all but the most erudite and cosmopolitan of scholars will encounter unfamiliar and compelling utopiana within its pages. While her earlier book, Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence (2018), concentrated on "state-sponsored solutions" to the deprivations of capitalism and patriarchy, (...) the present volume sets its sights squarely on the private sphere, and utopian visions "for rearranging our domestic... Read More. (shrink)

To understand the prospects for global order and progress in the coming years, we explore the joint implications of three premises: (1) states advantaged by the current international order have stakes in its regularity and predictability, and thus in moving to counter or prevent threats to those stakes; (2) along impure public and club goods lines, they are more likely to make efforts to do so when some private or club benefits result; and (3) public opinion provides a bounded policy (...) acceptance envelope offering incentives and disincentives to national political elites to act as envisioned by the first two premises. We present a mosaic of public opinion in major OECD countries (the US, Japan, and major EU members) on three policy areas that contain international public goods elements. Actual contribution tendencies in those areas found in our previous work largely conform to the public opinion patterns reported here. Within the limits of available data, domestic political incentives as represented by public opinion warrant neither extreme optimism nor pessimism about the prospects for continuing contributions by OECD states to sustaining orderly functioning of the current world system. (shrink)

POLICE ETHICS – Abstract Mark Lauchs -/- Police are an essential part of the justice system. They are the frontline actors in keeping the peace, social stability and cohesion. Thus good governance relies on honest policing. However, there will always be at least a small group of corrupt police officers, even though Australians are culturally averse to corruption (Khatri, Tsang, & Begley, 2006). There have been many cases where the allegations of police corruption have reached to the highest (...) levels of a state police force (Blanch, 1982) and, in the case of the Fitzgerald Inquiry (Fitzgerald, 1989), ended in a commissioner being convicted of corruption. -/- Any public official who places their own interests before those of the public have corrupted a system in which they are supposed to act as agents of the public, will undermine the good governance of a society (Lauchs, 2007). Police officers attract offers of corruption because of their ability to enforce or ignore the law. Police who are unethical or in financial stress are vulnerable to offers of illicit payments. Longstanding arrangements of corruption within a police branch can lead to a corruption network between police and criminals. Organised police corruption constitutes “social behaviour, conducted in groups within organisations, that is powerful enough to override the officer’s oath of office, personal conscience, departmental regulations and criminal laws.” (Punch, 2000) it is an even greater threat to the community because the damage done has more impact than the sum of the individual acts of corruption. This chapter will discuss the types of police corruption and focus on the organisation as the source of core police culture. -/- . (shrink)

There is a long history of cryptographic hash functions, i.e. functions mapping variable-length strings to fixed-length strings, and such functions are also expected to enjoy certain security properties. Hash functions can be effected via modular arithmetic, permutation-based schemes, chaotic mixing, and so on. Herein we introduce the notion of an artificial-life (ALife) hash function (ALHF), whereby the requisite mixing action of a good hash function is accomplished via ALife rules that give rise to complex evolution of a given system. (...) Various security tests have been run, and the results reported for examples of ALHFs. (shrink)

Virtue and the Moral Life brings together distinguished philosophers and theologians with younger scholars of consummate promise to produce ten essays that engage both academics and students of ethics. This collection explores the role virtues play in identifying the good life and the good society.

Virtue and the Moral Life brings together distinguished philosophers and theologians with younger scholars of consummate promise to produce ten essays that engage both academics and students of ethics. This collection explores the role virtues play in identifying the good life and the good society.

Group decisions raise a number of substantial philosophical and methodological issues. We focus on the goal of the group decision exercise itself. We ask: What should be counted as a good group decision-making result? The right decision might not be accessible to, or please, any of the group members. Conversely, a popular decision can fail to be the correct decision. In this paper we discuss what it means for a decision to be "right" and what components are required in (...) a decision process to produce happy decision-makers. Importantly, we discuss how "right" decisions can produce happy decision-makers, or rather, the conditions under which happy decision-makers and right decisions coincide. In a large range of contexts, we argue for the adoption of formal consensus models to assist in the group decision-making process. In particular, we advocate the formal consensus convergence model of Lehrer and Wagner (1981), because a strong case can be made as to why the underlying algorithm produces a result that should make each of the experts in a group happy. Arguably, this model facilitates true consensus, where the group choice is effectively each person's individual choice. We analyse Lehrer and Wagner's algorithm for reaching consensus on group probabilities/utilities in the context of complex decision-making for conservation biology. While many conservation decisions are driven by a search for objective utility/probability distributions (regarding extinction risks of species and the like), other components of conservation management primarily concern the interests of stakeholders. We conclude with cautionary notes on mandating consensus in decision scenarios for which no fact of the matter exists. For such decision settings alternative types of social choice methods are more appropriate. (shrink)

A central distinction in Curzer and Epstein (2022) is the one between “protect the disadvantaged” and “protect the data”. This can open up discussions about the relationship between ethics and epistemology in the practice of science. Focusing on the disadvantaged to the exclusion of good scientific practices, Curzer and Epstein argue, can harm everyone impacted by medical science, including the disadvantaged. For this reason, they propose that “ethical data scientists should strive for accurate data and scientifically sound data analysis” (...) (2022, p 2) with attention to minimizing data processing errors, bias, and outside influence, and that includes identifying errors caused by tendencies to neglect disadvantaged and historically underrepresented communities and groups. While we agree with several points made by Curzer and Epstein, we also have three main points of concern. We believe that Curzer and Epstein partially mischaracterize our original paper (Ratti & Graves, 2021) as “protect the disadvantaged.” We view as a controversial that “advancing knowledge” is a pure epistemic goal achievable by pure epistemic means. We see as important the social context to which data science is going to make a difference, and why ethics and epistemology are necessarily intertwined because of that context. (shrink)

BackgroundExtremely violent events such as terrorist attacks and mass shootings form a severe risk for the health and wellbeing of affected individuals. In this study based on a public health monitor, we focus on the health impact of the Utrecht tram shooting, which took place in the morning of March 18th 2019. A lone gunman opened fire on passengers within a moving tram. Four people died, and six people were injured in this attack. The attack resulted in nationwide commotion and (...) drew much media attention. Aim of this study was to increase insight into the health effects for the survivors, and whether they received the needed care and support.MethodsSemi-structured interviews with accompanying questionnaires were conducted at six and 18 months post-attack. Overall, 21 survivors participated in the first series of interviews, 15 in the second series. Qualitative data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, quantitative data was only described because of the low sample size.ResultsAt both six and 18 months after the attack many survivors had been able to resume daily life, and most rated their overall health as good or excellent. At the same time, a substantial portion suffered from health problems such as posttraumatic stress symptoms and other complaints, and needed professional care. Furthermore, those in need did not always find their own way to appropriate care through the existing health system: half of the survivors still needed support in finding the right care 18 months later.ConclusionAlthough the design and implementation of this public health monitor were accompanied by multiple challenges, it was possible to track a portion of the survivors and gain insight in the considerable health burden of the attack. Also, it is clear in this study that the health impact of terrorism affects survivors in the long run and requires attention from health authorities and professionals, as survivors were not able to find the right care by themselves. (shrink)

Definition of the problemAdvance directives involve evaluative assumptions about the further course of one’s life that can be more or less appropriate and thus call for ethical reflection. This contribution focuses on the basis and criteria of such assumptions. We argue that considerations regarding the temporal structure of a good life constitute a particularly relevant perspective in this context.ArgumentsEmpirical studies on the individual composition of advance directives point to the important role of personal values and life plans that can (...) change over time. Therefore, we first contextualize advance directives from the perspective of an ethics of the good life and then discuss their implications with regard to different levels of temporality, comprising fundamental parameters of human existence in time, cultural models of the life course, as well as narratives of the individual trajectory of life.ConclusionConceptions of a good life and its temporal structure represent an important perspective for drafting and interpreting advance directives. Their consideration provides a more nuanced understanding of the evaluative implications of advance care planning. This can benefit individual patients, service providers, as well as policy makers. (shrink)

Edward Craig and Michael Hannon agree that the function of knowledge is to enable us to identify informants whose word we can safely take. This requires that knowers display a publicly recognizable mark. Although this might suffice for information transfer, I argue that the position that emerges promotes testimonial injustice, since the mark of a good informant need not be shared by all who are privy to the facts we seek. I suggest a way the problem might (...) be alleviated. (shrink)

We examine the role of managers in controlling the positive impact of stakeholder management (SM) on firm financial performance (FP) in the long term. We develop and test competing hypotheses on whether managers act as “good citizens” or engage in “self‐dealing” when allowed greater discretion. We test our assertions using dynamic panel data analysis of a sample of 806 U.S. public firms operating in 34 industries over 5 years (2005–2009). Our results indicate a nuanced influence of managerial discretion contexts (...) on the SM‐FP relationship. We infer that given more latitude in decision making, as long as the “going is good” managers act as good citizens, but otherwise they revert to managerial self‐dealing. In light of our results, firms designing governance mechanisms to encourage managers to balance the needs of both shareholders and stakeholders must remain cognizant of contextual contingencies. (shrink)

Hannah Gadsby announces in Nanette that she must quit comedy because it has been unhealthy for her and her audiences. She provides four reasons for thinking this, which include criticisms of self-deprecation, jokes in general, comic relief, and anger. She argues that self-deprecation is humiliating and unhealthy for marginalized people like her; she suggests that jokes cannot provide the comic relief we hope for because of their logical structure; she says that comic relief is not good for us when (...) we look for relief from challenging subjects; and she argues that comedy is bad for everyone when it is based in anger because anger only spreads blind hatred. This chapter makes a case for and against each of Gadsby’s arguments, and it concludes that she can be wrong on any or all these points while nevertheless being one of the most philosophical comedians in the world. (shrink)

Is there such a thing as “a/the greater good”? Could it be conceived in radically ecological terms? By critically drawing on skeptical insights presented by Slavoj Žižek and Hans Sluga, the article articulates what I am calling “a/the greater ecological good” as an end and as the ethico-political means to this end. I begin by describing this good as an aim: the survival-flourishing of earthly entities and environs. Its contours and limits are outlined, and various Žižekian objections (...) are addressed. Next, the ethical and political means for this good’s realization are delineated. We are summoned to allow things to survive-thrive. But the existing order excessively disallows things from surviving-flourishing, so we are compelled to struggle against it and foster a society of letting-be. The article concludes by proffering an outline of a possible strategy for this political struggle. It would involve the collaborative conception of a blueprint of this envisioned society; popularizing and building mass solidarity around the blueprint; and leveraging this solidarity to, ideally, peacefully implement the blueprint; otherwise, ethico-political violence may be required in order to realize this greater ecological good. (shrink)

Little is known about how ethical organizational contexts influence employees’ perceived stress levels and well-being. This study used two theoretical lenses, ethical impact theory (Promislo et al. in Handbook of Unethical Work Behavior, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, 2013) and ethical decision-making theory (Schwartz in J Bus Ethics 139(4): 755–776, 2016), to investigate the relationships among perceived organizational ethics (comprised of ethical climate, leader/manager ethics, and corporate social responsibility), work-related stress, and employee well-being (comprised of vitality, life satisfaction, personal growth initiative, flourishing, (...) positive mental health, and self-actualization). Findings across two studies indicated that organizational ethics was negatively related to work-related stress, and that work-related stress was negatively related to employee well-being. Perceived organizational ethics is positively related to employee well-being, with post hoc mediation tests indicating that work-related stress partially mediates this relationship. Our findings suggest that organizations should be proactive in improving their ethical climate, such as choosing ethical leaders, developing a robust and well-communicated code of ethics, and actively practicing CSR. These measures should reduce excessive work-related stress and improve employee well-being. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

In this article, I attempt to deepen the Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions discourse around good teaching by appropriating Dewey's (1938) assertion that intelligent theorizing proceeds in a deep and inclusive manner. First, I highlight Darling-Hammond and Bransford's (2005) framework for good teaching and learning. I then locate pedagogical knowledge within this framework and draw upon Garrison's (1997) notion of prophetic teaching and van Manen's (1991a) notion of tactful teaching. I close by reflecting on how these notions are part (...) of a larger project—one that strives to remain inclusive to dimensions of teaching that are not easily codified. (shrink)

Even given the final truths of what is right and wrong, good and bad, ethics is not complete. For one may yet ask “Why should I be moral?” Of course, we have no prior assurance that it will be possible to provide a non-moral and justifiable answer to the rational and self-interested person. Nevertheless, I claim that reasons for being moral can be provided even for the rational, self-interested, and remorseless individual who knows he will not be caught. In (...) defending my claim I will draw on empirical data from recent social psychology and game theory. Actual human selves are malleable in a number of ways. I will show that it is rational for the self-interested person to modify selves in such a way that moral actions are increasingly preferred. Specifically, I will argue that it is in one’s rational self-interest to enhance empathy in others and future selves in such a way that for increasing numbers other-injury becomes a component of self-injury, and other-benefit becomes a component of self-benefit. This will allow a linkage to be drawn from rational and self-interested action to moral action. The development of this theory will begin by distinguishing my approach from that of Gauthier, then three interpretations of the “Why be moral?” question will be delineated, next the decision theoretic components of my account will be presented, and finally the role of empathy will be considered in detail. (shrink)

Numbers. Natural numbers -- Integers -- Real numbers -- Irrational and transcendental numbers -- Funny numbers. Zero -- e : the unnatural natural number -- [Phi] : the golden ratio -- i : the imaginary number -- Writing numbers. Roman numerals -- Egyptian fractions -- Continued fractions -- Logic. Mr. Spock is not logical -- Proofs, truth, and trees : oh my! -- Programming with logic -- Temporal reasoning -- Sets. Cantor's diagonalization : infinity isn't just infinity -- Axiomatic set (...) theory : keep the good, dump the bad -- Models : using sets as the LEGOs of the math world -- Transfinite numbers : counting and ordering infinite sets -- Group theory : finding symmetries with sets -- Mechanical math. Finite state machines : simplicity goes far -- The turing machine -- Pathology and the heart of computing -- Calculus : no, not that calculus- [lambda] calculus -- Numbers, booleans, and recursion -- Types, types, types : modeling [lambda] calculus -- The halting problem. (shrink)

God and Goodness takes the experience of value as a starting point for natural theology. Mark Wynn argues that theism offers our best understanding of the goodness of the world, especially its beauty and openness to the development of richer and more complex material forms. We also see that the world's goodness calls for a moral response: commitment to the goodness of the world represents a natural extension of the trust to which we aspire in our dealings with human (...) beings. (shrink)

Why do good people suffer? Does fate control the events that come our way? What is the difference between the reactions of men and women when a disaster occurs? Why did Jewish mothers kill their children in Ashkenazi countries? How did the Jews of Yemen tell about the deportation they were sentenced to? What explanation did the Hasidic Rebbe provide for what happened in the Holocaust? This is an unexpected journey through the Jewish bookcase - sometimes it is amusing, (...) sometimes horrifying, but always fascinating. A journey following one question and many answers, which expresses the human need to give meaning and meaning to the enigma of existence. (shrink)

What follows is an argument that can be used to justify the introduction of philosophical, and specifically ethical, discourse into a wide range of university courses. The argument advanced is, we hope, both sufficiently formal to convince administrators, and sufficiently broad to convince students, of the practical importance that at least one area of philosophy has for the successful pursuit of even the most praxis-oriented career.

Like much in this book, the title and dust jacket illustration are clever. The first evokes Hume's remark in the Treatise that ‘Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.’ The second, which represents a cross between a dance-step and a clinch, links up with the title and anticipates an example used throughout the book to support its central claims: that Ronnie, unlike Bradley, has a reason to go to a party – namely, that there will (...) be dancing at the party – because Ronnie, unlike Bradley, loves dancing. So, the explanation of why Ronnie's and Bradley's reasons differ lies in their respective psychologies.Schroeder argues for a version of the Humean Theory of Reasons he calls Hypotheticalism, which says that every reason is explained by a desire in the same way as Ronnie's is. Schroeder argues that on almost every count, Hypotheticalism is as good as, or preferable to, the Humean and non-Humean alternatives; and he defends it against an array of objections. For example, he explains that while Hypotheticalism claims that ‘desires have to serve in the explanation of every reason because desires are part of the correct analysis of reasons’, it does not claim that a desire that explains a reason is part of that reason: rather it is a background condition for it. This, Schroeder argues, allows him to rebut a variety of objections that depend on conflating reasons with their background conditions. Other …. (shrink)

Dr. David K. Naugle is widely regarded as a leading thinker in the area of Christian worldview formation. As Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Dallas Baptist University, he has drawn accolades and admiration. -/- This collection in his honor demonstrates that intellectual pursuits are inherently spiritual, that no area of life is separate from the lordship of Christ, and that true Christian faith is in fact the deep fulfillment of the human experience. On topics ranging from linguistics to gardening and (...) everything in between, these essays represent the depth and breadth of the idea that all goodness is God's goodness, all truth is God's truth, and all beauty is God's beauty. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Schopenhauer's Pessimism and the Unconditioned Good MARK MIGOTTI SCHOPENHAUERTOOK PESSIMISMtO be a profound doctrine that had long been accepted by the majority of humanity, albeit usually in the allegorical form given to it by one or another religious creed. Accordingly, he credited himself, not with the discovery of pessimism, but with the provision of a satisfactory philosophical exposition and defense of its claims. It was, he contended, (...) only within the context of his philosophy, animated by the "single thought" that "the world is the self-knowledge of the will,"' that the ultimate significance of pessimism and the arguments demonstrating its inescapability can be brought to light. If, nevertheless, he sometimes appears to protest too much, to defend pessimism as if it were a striking and novel affair, he would have attributed this to the fact that he was, unfortunately, writing in the midst of one of the most naively optimistic cultures known to world history. 2 The philosophical reception of Schopenhauer's pessimism since the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818 would, one suspects, have been taken by him as further evidence of modern Western philosophy's optimistic somnambulance. For while other, comparably fundamental aspects of his thought--for example, his theories of action, of the self, and his criticisms of Kant--have received a welcome amount of fruitful, critical attention, his I would like to thank John Atwell, David Schmidtz, Susan Haack, Rudolf Makkreel and, especially,two anonymous referees, for prompting me to make substantial improvements to an earlier draft of this paper. ' Arthur Schopenhauer, Der handschrifllicher Nachlass 1, ed. Arthur Hiibscher (Frankfurt-amMain : Kramer, 1967),462; Manuscript Remains 1, trans. E. F.J. Payne(NewYork: Berg Publishing, 1988), 512. 'See, for example, Arthur Schopenhauer, D/e Welt als Wille und VorsteUung II. In Arthur Schopenhauer. Ziircher Ausgabe, ed. Arthur Hiibscher et. al. (Zurich: DiogenesVerlag, 1977),w 4:721, 732-33; The World as Will and Representation II, trans. E. F. J. Payne(New York: Dover Press, 1969),615, 625-26. Future references to this work willbe made within the text, by the abbreviation WW followed by section number, German edition volume and page number and English translation page number. [643] 644 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 pessimism has not. Amongst enthusiastic followers it has sometimes been swallowed more or less whole, but from more independent-minded readers it has generally met with disdainful mockery or well-intentioned neglect.3 The aim of this paper is to help rectify' this imbalance. In the first of its four sections, I present an account of Schopenhauerian pessimism that can claim a good measure of textual support, and the essential features of which are found often enough in the secondary literature to warrant calling it the mainstream interpretation.4 In section 2 I show that, as critics have charged, the arguments for pessimism on this interpretation suffer from a pair of fatal ambiguities, and in section 3 I sketch an alternative argument for pessimism, one not so obviously open to the sort of knock-down refutation to which the first argument succumbs. In the paper's final section l explore further the philosophical consequences of this alternative argument for pessimism. 3Gyorg'yLukacs, "Schopenhauer," chapter ~,section 4 of The Destruction of Reason, trans. Peter Palmer (London: Merlin Press, 1979), 19~-243, isthe locusclassicusof an attitude of superior scorn. Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Oxford: "the Clarendon Press, 1983), z3-14, D. W. Hamlyn, Schopentmuer (London: Routledge, z98o), *43, Michael Fox, "Schopenhauer on Death, Suicide, and Renunciation." in Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement, ed. Michael Fox (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 198o), ]47-7o, and David Cartwrigh*, "Schopenhauer on Suffering, Death, Guilt, and the Consolation of Metaphysics,"in Schopenhauer: New Essays in Hotwr ofHis 2ooth Birthday, ed. Eric yon der Luft (Lewiston,NY: Edwin Mellen Press, t988), 66, all incline to the viewthat it was temperament, not argument, that drove Schopenhauer to pessimism, while Patrick Gardiner, Schopenhatwr (London: Penguin Books, ]963), does not discuss pessimism by name. Not even Nietzsche, the deepest and most astute of Schopenhauer'scritics,can resistbarbs of the following sort: "Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, in ]act played the flute... (shrink)

Good agricultural practices certification schemes have been promoted to enhance agricultural sustainability. This study seeks to explain the adoption of GAP certification schemes through an analysis of the role of personal values in guiding such choice. It is a departure from approaches taken in previous studies in the area. Through the laddering interview technique of means-end chain analysis, a hierarchical value map was systematically schematized to illustrate the relationship between adoption of GAP, outcomes, and personal values driving the choice. (...) The personal values identified in this study cluster under the headings of “better life”, “religious responsibility”, “healthy life”, and “responsible farmer”. Amongst these, the main evidence pointed to the desire to have “better life” through the enhanced financial position that is perceived to arise as a consequence of GAP adoption as being of primary importance. These findings suggest that, while profit is not the sole end driver of adoptive behavior, GAP certification schemes have to be seen as lucrative and to enhance the goals of achieving core personal values. Other empirical information in this study also has significant policy implications. It is a key finding of this paper that effective promotions of GAP should be tailored and targeted at specific segments of the farmer population. (shrink)

The doctrine of perspectivism -- Educational implications of perspectivism : empathizing with the other -- The doctrine of self-overcoming -- Educational implications of self-overcoming : embodying reason, embracing struggle -- The doctrine of the order of rank -- Educational implications of the order of rank : creating a culture of emulation -- The doctrine of a reseentiment -- Educational implications of ressentiment : cultivating a disposition of gratitude -- Conclusion : Nietzsche's pedagogical vision for the good life.

Certain sorts of disputes about principles of distributive justice that have occupied a great deal of attention in recent political philosophy turn out to be fundamentally unresolvable, when they are conducted in ignorance of whether an important subclass of basic social goods exists within any particular society. I employ the folktale ‘Stone Soup’ to illustrate how such distributional goods might come into existence. Using the debate about John Rawls’s Difference Principle as an example, I argue that a proper appreciation for (...) the axiological status of these goods shows that disputes about principles (at least as these have been conducted within the Rawlsian tradition) should be relegated to a subsidiary status relative to other, more fundamental concerns about the ethics of economic distribution. (shrink)

This article puts critical realism in conversation with the classical Aristotelian concept of the common good. This concept plays an essential explanatory role in Aristotelian thought, not only a normative one, and so it has something to offer critical realism, which in turn can provide a sound metatheory for common good reflection. It is argued that accounts of emergence based on causal powers and common purpose are compatible and mutually enlightening. Critical realism can develop a distinctive conception of (...) common good based around ontological stratification and social teleology. In this conception, empirical social enquiry is essential for understanding what common goods are available in given social settings, since common goods flow from the intransitive real features of social entities, especially their causal powers. (shrink)

This contribution sets out to criticize the prominent metaphor of “death while alive” in the context of dementia. We first explain the historical origin and development as well as the philosophical premises of the image. We then take a closer look at its implications for understanding dementia and societal attitudes and behaviours towards those affected. In doing so, we adopt a life course perspective that seeks to account for the ethical significance of the temporal extension and structure of human life. (...) According to this perspective, individual existence in time is characterized by normative standards of age-appropriate behavior, evaluative standards of a good life, and teleological notions of successful development which require theoretical analysis and ethical discussion. Such a perspective can contribute significantly to spelling out the implications of the metaphor of death while alive and to criticizing their problematic aspects. Indeed, it makes clear that this metaphor aligns dementia with a different point in the human life course, thus ultimately framing it as a kind of deviation from the biographical norm, a disruption in an assumed temporal order of existence. At the same time, the life course perspective can help to understand why this conception involves ethically problematic distortions and blind spots. The resulting considerations allow conclusions with regard to medical and care ethical debates about self-determination, surrogate decision making, and advance directives in the context of dementia. Furthermore, on a theoretical-conceptual level, they also illustrate the importance of a biography- and culture-sensitive approach to philosophical and ethical reasoning in biomedicine and the life sciences. (shrink)

This book takes a theoretical enterprise in Christian philosophy of religion and applies it to Buddhism, thus defending Buddhism and presenting it favorably in comparison. Chapters explore how the claims of both Christianity and Theravada Buddhism rest on people's experiences, so the question as to which claimants to religious knowledge are right rests on the evidential value of those experiences. The book examines mysticism and ways to understand what goes on in religious experiences, helping us to understand whether it is (...) good grounds for religious belief. The author argues that religious language in both Christian and Buddhist traditions is intelligible as factual discourse, and so reports of mystical experience are true or false. The book contends that those experiences can be fruitfully thought of as perceptual in kind and that they are therefore good prima facie grounds for religious belief, in the absence of defeating conditions. The work goes on to explore Christian and Buddhist testimony and how the likelihood of self-deception, self-delusion, imaginative elaboration and the like constitutes a defeating condition. It is shown that this defeater has less scope for operation in the Buddhist case than in the Christian case, and therefore Theravada Buddhism is better grounded. This work will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy and philosophy of religion, and those interested in the study of religious experience. (shrink)

Engineering can learn from ethics, but ethics can also learn from engineering. In this paper, I discuss what engineering metaphors can teach us about practical philosophy. Using metaphors such as calculation, performance, and open source, I articulate two opposing views of morality and politics: one that relies on images related to engineering as science and one that draws on images of engineering practice. I argue that the latter view and its metaphors provide a more adequate way to understand and guide (...) the moral life. Responding to two problems of alienation and taking into account developments such as Fab Lab I then further explore the implications of this view for engineering and society. (shrink)

A Theory of Argument is an advanced textbook intended for students in philosophy, communications studies and linguistics who have completed at least one course in argumentation theory, information logic, critical thinking or formal logic. Containing nearly 400 exercises, Mark Vorobej develops a novel approach to argument interpretation and evaluation. One of the key themes of the book is that we cannot succeed in distinguishing good argument from bad arguments until we learn to listen carefully to others. Part I (...) develops a relativistic account of argument cogency that allows for rational disagreement. Part II offers a comprehensive and rigorous account of argument diagramming. Hybrid arguments are contrasted with linked and convergent arguments, and a novel technique is introduced for graphically recording disagreements with authorial claims. (shrink)

In seeking an account of the good life we are looking for what philosophers sometimes term a theory of wellbeing, welfare or prudential good. Philosophical theories of prudential value are often parsed according to a tripartite distinction: hedonism, desire satisfactionism, and objective list theories. This chapter defends the objective list theory. The author argues that repeated application of the method of difference results in a very big objective list of prudential values. The resulting theory termed the “big objective (...) list” theory of wellbeing includes the two main contemporary competitors to objective list theories — hedonism and desire satisfactionism — as well as athleticism, autonomy, beauty, creativity, friendship, happiness, health, knowledge, love, truth, and wealth. The author considers objections to the big objective list as well as objections to the method of difference. (shrink)