The rhetoric of Principia Ethica, as of not a few philosophy books, is that of the clean break. Moore claims that the vast majority of previous writing on ethics has been misguided and that an entirely new start is needed. In its time, however, the book’s claims to novelty were widely disputed. Reviews in Mind, Ethics, and The Journal of Philosophy applauded the clarity of Moore’s criticisms of Mill, Spencer, and others, but said they were “not altogether original,” had (...) for the most part “already been brought out by other critics,” and were even “the standard criticisms.”1 To the Mind reviewer, “The book indicates throughout how strongly the author has been affected by Sidgwick’s views.”2 Hastings Rashdall rejected as historically inaccurate Moore’s claim that only Sidgwick before him had recognized that “good” is indefinable: “To say nothing of writers who (like Mr. Moore and myself) learned the doctrine largely from Sidgwick, I should contend that it was taught with sufficient distinctness by Plato ..., Aristotle, and a host of other writers who have studied in their school.”3 Rashdall also described Moore’s principle of organic unities as just “a new and striking way of stating a very old truth.”4 Some recent commentators have taken a similar line. Bernard Williams has said that much of Principia Ethica comes from Sidgwick,5 while Thomas Baldwin, discussing the book’s substantive values, has said the principle of organic unities “was expressly stated by Bradley,” while “McTaggart had for some years extolled the value of love, and the value of art is a central theme of romanticism.”. (shrink)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has developed a novel framework for assessing and communicating uncertainty in the findings published in their periodic assessment reports. But how should these uncertainty assessments inform decisions? We take a formal decision-making perspective to investigate how scientific input formulated in the IPCC’s novel framework might inform decisions in a principled way through a normative decision model.

What value should we put on our chances of obtaining a good? This paper argues that, contrary to the widely accepted theory of von Neumann and Morgenstern, the value of a chance of some good G may be a nonlinear function of the value of G. In particular, chances may have diminishing marginal utility, a property that is termed chance uncertainty aversion. The hypothesis that agents are averse to uncertainy about chances explains a pattern of preferences often observed in the (...) Ellsberg paradox. While these preferences have typically been taken to refute Bayesian decision theory, it is shown that chance risk aversion is perfectly compatible with it. (shrink)

In this article I show that population geneticists are acknowledging a kind of biological population that has hitherto been unappreciated by philosophers. The new population talk occurs when population geneticists call continent-level human genetic clusters ‘populations’ in population structure research. My theory is that the kind of population being referred to is the K population, which is, roughly, a biological population whose members are united by common genomic ancestry and in which population membership is graded. After presenting and defending the (...) theory, I show that the K population is indeed a kind of biological population. Finally, I address likely objections. (shrink)

Are contemporary soldiers exploited by the state and society that they defend? More specifically, have America's professional service members disproportionately carried the moral weight of America's war-fighting decisions since the inception of an all-volunteer force? In this volume, Michael J. Robillard and Bradley J. Strawser, who have both served in the military, examine the question of whether and how American soldiers have been exploited in this way. Robillard and Strawser offer an original normative theory of 'moral exploitation'--the notion that (...) persons or groups can be wrongfully exploited by being made to shoulder an excessive amount of moral weight. They make the case that this exploitation accurately describes the relationship between the United States and the members of its military, and offer a thorough and in-depth analysis of some of the exploitative and misleading elements of present-day military recruitment, the moral burdens soldiers often bear, and the stifling effect that a 'Thank You for Your Service' and 'I support the troops' culture has had on serious public engagement about America's ongoing wars. Robillard and Strawser offer a piercing critique of the pernicious divide between military members and the civilians who direct them. They conclude by arguing for several normative and prudential prescriptions to help close this ever-widening fissure between the U.S. and its military, and within the U.S. itself. In so doing, their work gives a much needed and urgent voice to America's soldiers, the other 1%. (shrink)

Perhaps the commonest reasons for the keeping of pets are companionship and as a conduit for affection. Pets are, therefore, being “used” for human ends in much the same way as laboratory or farm animals. So shouldn’t the same arguments apply to the use of pets as to those used in other ways? In accepting the “rights” of farm animals to fully express their natural behavior, one must also accept the “right” of pets to express their intrinsic natural behavior. Dogs (...) kept in houses for most of the day are being kept in an unnatural environment. So are rabbits kept in hutches, and guinea-pigs or birds in cages. These conditions infringe the animals’ telos. Dogs are naturally pack animals, so is a dog in isolation being denied its telos? Other actions more deliberately infringe telos and autonomy. Enforced shampooing – or even exercise; hair-cutting of poodles; putting animals in clothes; and tail-docking. If de-beaking of chickens is considered wrong, then the same must be true for tail-docking of dogs. One should also question the ethics of specialist breeding – especially when that results in physiological disadvantages (boxers with breathing troubles). There would appear to be no advantage to the animals in having such health problems and when these are the direct result of the breeders’ desire for specific cosmetic traits, we should question the ethics of the practice at least as much as when animals are bred for specific agricultural traits. (shrink)

The paper distinguishes between two different senses of ‘genius’ found in Kant's Critique of Judgement, and criticizes an argument commonly attributed to Kant. The argument is in support of the conclusion that an agent must possess and employ genius in the ‘productive faculty’ sense in order to produce an artwork. It is shown that Kant did not in fact make this argument. He defended a different claim concerning the need to employ the concept of a productive faculty of genius in (...) order to make pure judgements of taste concerning artworks. I conclude with the suggestion that there are indications in Kant's theory of a significant departure from a tradition of thought according to which there is something essentially mysterious about the possibility of the production of fine art. (shrink)

The present study examined gender and attitude toward science in fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States and also assessed to what extent the relationship between science attitude and science achievement differed by gender. Results showed that both fourth- and eighth-grade boys demonstrated more confidence in science than girls, while eighth-grade boys also showed greater liking for science than girls. Additionally, gender moderated the relationship between science achievement and (a) liking science (for fourth-grade students) and (b) confidence in science (...) (eighth-grade students). Results are discussed in terms of addressing gender inequities in science education and career opportunities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey: Idealist and Pragmatic Christians on Politics, Philosophy, Religion, and WarBradley BurroughsReinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey: Idealist and Pragmatic Christians on Politics, Philosophy, Religion, and War Kevin Carnahan Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2010. 302 pp. $75.00.In a time when the “war on terror” and the polarization of American political culture have raised acute questions about politics, war, and the use of power, Kevin Carnahan (...) believes ethicists could benefit from the legacies of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey. During a similarly vexed period, Niebuhr and Ramsey found themselves at odds over the morality of the Vietnam War. Carnahan’s project seeks to elucidate the underlying sources of this disagreement, examining in turn how each thinker construes the task of moral theology, the nature of political society, and the moral status of war. Throughout these treatments, Carnahan illustrates how Niebuhr and Ramsey elaborated “overlapping but divergent” positions profoundly influenced by their respective encounters with pragmatism and idealism.Even as he shows how Niebuhr modified the pragmatist inheritance and Ramsey the idealist, Carnahan highlights how both were shaped especially by the way in which these traditions sought to counter specific moral dangers. For pragmatists, the key danger lay in the kind of moral fanaticism that blithely assumes its own righteousness. Sensitized to this threat, Niebuhr articulated a moral theology centered upon an understanding of love as an ideal that is always relevant yet never fully realizable in history, a construal that subverts all pretensions to righteousness. Idealism, on the other hand, sets itself against the danger of atomistic individualism, which Ramsey opposed by depicting social institutions in their essential forms as “‘garments of skin’... with which God... clothed naked human relations” (129) and by characterizing love as fundamentally a matter of upholding the covenants implied in such institutions. Ultimately, Niebuhr’s opposition to fanaticism predisposed him to focus upon the idolatries at play in political society and war and allowed him rather early on to descry the pretentiousness of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Ramsey’s thought included a presumption in favor of supporting the policies developed by social and political leaders that led him to defend American intervention in Vietnam until sometime around 1973. [End Page 218]The book’s expository work is generally surefooted and illuminative, although it at times falls into redundancy, baldly reiterating its thesis. Nonetheless, it complements existing scholarship on Niebuhr and Ramsey with an investigation of the philosophical premises of their ethical thought that each was eager to conceal. Such work will benefit scholars of Niebuhr and Ramsey as well as advanced students seeking to grasp the general architecture of their thought. Moreover, many will find Carnahan’s interpretations of Niebuhr and Ramsey impressive. For example, Carnahan portrays Niebuhr as a more Barthian and ecclessially minded thinker than most accounts. Although Carnahan understandably does not treat such indictments in detail, his rendering undercuts charges leveled by many of Niebuhr’s critics, including Bennett, Yoder, and Hauerwas. Unfortunately, though, Carnahan’s arguments on some of these disputed points are predicated upon a relatively narrow selection of essays. Still, the book unsettles assumptions and suggests further possibilities for inquiry.In addition to his expository work, Carnahan also makes a further contribution as he subjects both Niebuhr and Ramsey to constructive criticism that exposes—and identifies ways of reinforcing—some of the weaknesses of pragmatism and idealism. Eschewing a synthesis, Carnahan instead offers a mutually constructive dialogue capable of helping thinkers of both stripes think through the issues that confront contemporary America. Even if he does not elaborate on a more precise application of his insights to contemporary politics, he offers advice helpful to pragmatists and idealists alike and leaves many of us hoping that he has more to say on such matters. [End Page 219]Bradley BurroughsEmory UniversityCopyright © 2012 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This article describes overlapping links among incarceration, poor health, race, and stigma, and stigma's impact on the health of former prisoners and their families and communities. The authors include policy recommendations to reduce the impact of incarceration and stigma.

The blink response to visual threat is a standard bedside method for testing visual processing. In response to a sudden gesture directed toward the eyes, a person with a normal blink response will promptly contract both orbicularis oculi muscles to close the eyelids momentarily. There is no consensus as to whether blinking to visual threat (BVT) is purely reflex1 or a cognitively mediated behavior that heralds consciousness; i.e., is incompatible with the diagnosis of the vegetative state (VS).2,3 Some authors stated (...) that “one should be extremely cautious in making the diagnosis of the VS when there is . . . response to threatening gestures.”4 Others stated that “react(ion) to visual threat” is a “compatible but atypical feature” of VS.5 Similarly, other guidelines stated that the “threat response is usually absent” in VS.6 Finally, BVT was not mentioned in some workgroup criteria on the minimally conscious state.7 The aim of the study was to determine the incidence of BVT in patients whose clinical features are in all other respects typical of the VS, as assessed by means of validated testing.7 We also investigated whether the presence of BVT in patients considered vegetative is predictive of recovery of consciousness. (shrink)

I argue that two of the standard axioms of the AGM theory of belief revision stand in the way of it serving as the basis for an adequate account of defeasible reasoning, because they respectively disallow the adoption of beliefs not logically entailed by those previously learned and the abandonment of those not contradicted by them.

The essay sheds light on Aristotle's understanding of friendship and its relation to political life. The author challenges the usual view that Aristotle postulates three distinct kinds of friendship. Instead the author argues that Aristotle understood there to be only one kind of friendship, and that other "friendships" were to Aristotle "unfinished" and thus not friendship at all. Aristotle shows that the relation between friendship and politics is grounded in friendship's possibility for human beings, and not as something cherished for (...) its actuality. By looking at proper friendship as possibility and not actuality, we could only ever interpret the infamous statement attributed to Aristotle—"my friends, there are no friends"—not as illuminating of what friendship is but rather as a nostalgic diagnosis of the decay of the possibility of friendship, and hence of politics. By extension, and more poignantly, interpreting Aristotle's work on friendship in this light, we stand ready to reinterpret the mobilization of Aristotelian friendship for contemporary understandings of democratic practice. (shrink)

In Propositional Attitudes, Mark Richard claims that some natural and formal language sentences of the form(∀ x)(∀ y)(x = y → α → α [y/x])are false. He suggests a substitution for α that is sensitive to certain ancillary features of the variable letter as well as the assignment, and then argues that this substitution generates a false instance of the above-mentioned schema. I reject Richard's argument and argue further that the sentence is not an instance of that schema. I then (...) argue that his putative natural language example fails as well. Finally, I suggest that although Richard's mistake here does not present any technical problem for his semantics for attitude ascriptions, it undermines his claim that his semantic theory is better able to respect the surface form of attitude ascriptions in natural languages than competing theories. (shrink)

Hume's works in Colonial and early Revolutionary America -- Historiographical context for Hume's reception in eighteenth-century America -- Hume's earliest reception in Colonial America -- Hume's impact on the prelude to American independence -- Humean origins of the American Revolution -- Hume and Madison on faction -- Was Hume a liability in late eighteenth-century America? -- Explaining "Publius's" silent use of Hume -- The reception of Hume's politics in late eighteenth-century America.

AMONG the many cases of malpractices by solicitors recently brought to light, one is especially striking as seeming at variance with all probability. ...