Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good. (...) What if you want something only because you have a false belief? What if the time at which you want that p is fifty or five hundred years before the time to which p itself refers? To meet these difficulties, qualifications have to be introduced, and much has been written about how exactly these qualifications are to be framed.1 There is however what may be a rather more serious objection to the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good, or rather to the combination of that view with the principle that it is sufficient for your want that p to be satisfied simply that p is true. The objection is that this combination forces you to give undue weight to the mere acquisition of desires when you come to make judgements about changes in the value of things. It forces you to say that for any true proposition p, which initially you do not want to be true, your mere acquisition of a desire that p will, other things being equal, make the world better. Non-instrumental value can be increased merely by multiplying desires, even though everything else remains the same. Surely, however, improving the world is not as easy as that. (shrink)

1. The ideal of spatio-temporally unrestricted generalisation, which marks all post-mythological thinking about nature, marks no more than the continuity of totemism in political casuistry. No unrestricted principle of Socialism or Conservatism or Liberal Democracy is defensible unless it is accorded a moral ultimacy which almost no one fully conscious of what he was about would actually want to accord it. If this bare platitude is to be fully assimilated, it needs both concrete exemplification and support of the systematic kind. (...) Liberal principles are well provided for in these respects: J. F. Stephen showed in brilliant detail that, from a utilitarian point of view, the question whether liberty even in advanced societies is irrespective of time and place a good or a bad thing is an irrational question—”as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing.” But demonstrations and illustrations of the restricted nature of our other popular political principles are not so easily come by, and the critical survey of standard prodemocratic arguments, which makes up Part III of this paper, is meant to supply a part of the deficiency. (shrink)

N. M. L. Nathan; VIII*—Democracy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 123–138, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

Any study of the religious situation in Ukraine always faces one problem - the lack of detailed information on the number of believers of a particular denomination. The most recent census did not include the question of denominational affiliation, as it was considered a violation of the principle of freedom of conscience. The only officially recognized statistical unit we have is the religious community. Approximate number of adherents of a particular denomination is given by the results of sociological research. However, (...) it is precisely at the border of statistics and sociology that one of the paradoxes that the current religious situation in Ukraine is rich in is the paradox of the inconsistency of sociological data with statistics. Thus, according to the State Committee for National Religions of Ukraine as of January 1, 2009, there were 11539 communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, 4128 communities of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate, and 1184 communities of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. As the traditional Greek churches include the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and Roman Catholics, their number is 3570 and 907 communities, respectively. (shrink)

N. M. L. Nathan; VIII*—Democracy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 123–138, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/.

В сборник представлены статьи и тезисы докладов по актуальным проблемам философии, ее преподавания в высшей школе, философско-культурологическому анализу различных аспектов культуры.

The self is one of the perennial topics in philosophy, and also one of the most debated. Its existence has been both defended and contested in equal measure by philosophers including Descartes and Hume. A Map of Selves: Beyond Philosophy of Mind proposes an original and compelling defense of selfhood. N. M. L. Nathan argues that the self is an enduring substance with a unique quality not shared with any other substance. He criticizes the panpsychist theory that material objects are (...) composed of selves analogous to ours and argues for the existence of at least one transcendent self, whose activity explains both our own existence and the existence of the natural world. He concludes by considering how the world would be for us if such selves did not exist, and we were, as some philosophers think we are, not selves, but, e.g., brains or simply sequences of mental events. A radical and innovative philosophical theory of the self, A Map of Selves: Beyond Philosophy of Mind will be of interest to those working on the philosophy of self and personal identity, philosophy of mind and metaphysics. (shrink)

Ukraine has a special geopolitical location in Europe - between East and West, South and North. The specificity of this provision is due to multi-year contacts between peoples who lived or passed through its territory, the interactions of different cultures, traditions and worldviews. As a result, there is a rather varied ethno-national and religious palette of Ukrainian population. In today's conditions of building an independent state and civil society, this can be both a positive and a negative factor. Recent events (...) and practices show that the problem of religious and ethnic renaissance has acquired a special political and spiritual significance. Different directions of Christianity, other religions, existing for centuries on the Ukrainian ethnic basis, have been influenced by a wide range of social and national life. In addition, ethno-national and religious processes took place differently in the western and eastern regions of Ukraine, in the village and in the city. (shrink)

Мета. Автор цієї статті має на меті привернути увагу дослідників до створення етичної системи, яка здатна гармонійно поєднувати універсальні принципи та культурне різноманіття, враховуючи права і гідність кожної людини як ключового учасника етичних дискусій. Стверджується, що ефективна етична система дає можливість кожній людині брати участь у моральних обговореннях та прийнятті етичних рішень. Теоретичний базис. Ґрунтуючись на підходах Канта, Ролза, Сінгера та інших, автор наполягає на необхідності визначення та узгодження універсальних принципів. Вони мають стати основою всіх подальших етичних обговорень. Захист особистої (...) ідентичності підкреслено через міжкультурну чутливість (Герсковіц, Бенедикт). Люди з різних культурних контекстів повинні бути включені в етичні дебати. Також наголошено на важливості дослідження гнучкості етичних концепцій відповідно до космополітизму Аппіа та підходу до можливостей Нуссбаум. Етичні теорії мають балансувати між культурним плюралізмом та універсальністю. Культурна чутливість в етичних теоріях повинна визнавати, поважати та надавати простір для інших моральних систем, показуючи шлях для формулювання відкритих етичних теорій. Антропологічні та філософські погляди вкладають у досягнення необхідного балансу між основними принципами та гнучкістю, щоб створити можливості для діалогу й консенсусу. Нарешті, намагаючись досягти універсальності, культурної чутливості та адаптивності, етичні системи у взаємопов’язаному світі повинні застосовувати принципи в різних суспільствах, поважати різноманітність цінностей і враховувати зміни в цих суспільствах. Наукова новизна. Окреслено контури можливого збалансованого підходу, відзначено універсальність як центральний елемент етичної теорії, а також міжкультурну чутливість, гнучкість і адаптивність. Це дозволяє кожній людині зберегти ідентичність та відчувати свою участь в етиці. Висновки. Автор демонструє, що необхідно просувати такі якості, як розуміння культурної специфіки, емпатія до інших культур та співпраця у вирішенні моральних дилем на шляху до етичної досконалості. Лише збалансований підхід, який поєднує універсальні принципи та враховує культурне різноманіття, визнає права та гідність кожної людини і перевершує культурні відмінності. (shrink)