The book has two aims. First, to examine the extent and significance of the connection between Hume's aesthetics and his moral philosophy; and, second, to consider how, in light of the connection, his moral philosophy answers central questions in ethics. The first aim is realized in chapters 1-4. Chapter 1 examines Hume's essay "Of the Standard of Taste" to understand his search for a "standard" and how this affects the scope of his aesthetics. Chapter 2 establishes that he treats beauty (...) in nature and art and moral beauty as similar in kind, and applies the conclusions about his aesthetics to his moral thought. Chapter 3 solves a puzzle to which this gives rise, namely, how individuals both accept general standards that they also contravene in the course of aesthetic and moral activity. Chapter 4 takes up the normative aspect of Hume's approach by understanding moral character through his view of moral beauty. The second aim of the book is realized in chapters 5-7 by entertaining three objections against Hume's moral philosophy. First, if morality is an immediate reaction to the beauty of vice and the deformity of virtue, why is perfect virtue not the general condition of every human individual? Second, if morality consists of sentiments that arise in the subject, how can moral judgments be objective and claim universal validity? And third, if one can talk of "general standards" governing conduct, how does one account for the diversity of moral systems and their change over time? The first is answered by showing that like good taste in aesthetics, 'right taste' in morals requires that the sentiments are educated; the second, by arguing against the view that Hume is a subjectivist and a relativist, and the third, by showing that his approach contains a view of progress left untouched by any personal prejudices Hume himself might harbor. The book concludes in chapter 7 by showing how Hume's view of philosophy affects the scope of any normative ethics. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes two components of experience, the subjective and objective, and connects them to the distinction between “individual” and “social” epistemology. These elements, it is then proposed, shape Hume’s approach to knowledge and belief and, by extension, his treatment of taste. The paper con- cludes by distinguishing “philosophical criticism” from “vulgar criticism”; the former reflects Hume’s place in the eighteenth-century “science of man,” while the latter connects him to a tradition that makes aesthetics closer to an art criticism.

This dissertation examines Edmund Husserl's call for a "science of the life-world." It is argued that the most appropriate response is to develop such a science in specifically sociological terms. This argument is made by exploring particular themes in sociological theory and the philosophy of the social sciences. The dissertation begins by explicating Husserl's aspiration to understand the "life-world" and ends with the fulfillment of this aspiration in a "sociology of the life-world." ;The initial focus is upon Husserl's ambiguous concepts (...) of "life-world" and "intersubjectivity." These gain coherence when "intersubjectivity" is understood as the content of "life-world" and subject matter of philosophy. Husserl's argument implies that intersubjectivity should supersede subjectivity as the focus of study. Schutz contends that Husserl's conception of the life-world is artificial and that his philosophy is beset by an insurmountable solipsism. Schutz's alternative is to approach intersubjectivity as an empirical fact. This opens up everyday life to sociological investigation. Although Schutz follows Husserl's recommendations, it is argued that he misconstrues the scope of Husserl's philosophy and, subsequently, his own thought terminates in a reification of method and failure to achieve a science of the life-world. Mead provides a way to remedy this failure by beginning with the relationship between individual and society. Yet Mead's conception of intersubjectivity also fails, as it is undermined by an account of meaning premised on the individual alone. ;By introducing the idea of "universal symbol," however, Mead suggests the study of language as the central topic for a sociology of the life-world. In the final chapters this dissertation draws upon the thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michael Oakeshott, and Harold Garfinkel to discuss how language can be conceived and studied as a set of practices shared within a society. While realizing Husserl's call, the solution of focusing on language raises the question of the scope and nature of sociological inquiry. The dissertation concludes by arguing that sociology, since its procedures are governed by the everyday character of phenomena it studies, should be understood as a descriptive mode of inquiry. In this way, Husserl's recommendations may be enacted in a sociology of the life-world. (shrink)

Beginning with a clear account of the historical setting for The Abolition of Man and its place within C.S. Lewis' corpus of writing, Contemporary Perspectives on C. S. Lewis' The Abolition of Man: History, Philosophy, Education and Science assesses and appraises Lewis' seminal lectures, providing a thorough analysis of the themes and subjects that are raised. Chapters focus on the major areas of thought including: philosophy, natural law, education, literature, politics, theology, science, biotechnology and the connection between the Ransom Trilogy. (...) Drawing on Lewis' central ideas, they tackle questions such as, is The Abolition of Man hostile to scientific inquiry? Does Lewis provide an adequate rational defense of natural moral law? Do the lectures address the philosophical questions of the 21st century as Lewis sought to provide answers to philosophical questions of the 20th century? Dealing with themes across multiple areas of human inquiry, the authors bring expertise from their respective fields to bear on the core issues raised in Lewis' lectures. The result is an interdisciplinary approach that offers the first comprehensive scholarly treatment of The Abolition of Man, one of the most debated of Lewis' works. (shrink)

Defines the cutting-edge of scholarship on ancient Greek history employing methods from social science.

The British Aesthetic Tradition: From Shaftesbury to Wittgenstein is the first single volume to offer readers a comprehensive and systematic history of aesthetics in Britain from its inception in the early eighteenth century to major developments in Britain and beyond in the late twentieth century. The book consists of an introduction and eight chapters, and is divided into three parts. The first part, The Age of Taste, covers the eighteenth-century approaches of internal sense theorists, imagination theorists and associationists. The second, (...) The Age of Romanticism, takes readers from debates over the picturesque through British Romanticism to late Victorian criticism. The third, The Age of Analysis, covers early twentieth-century theories of Formalism and Expressionism to conclude with Wittgenstein and a number of views inspired by his thought. (shrink)

Although one might reasonably ask whether the explicit references to taste, beauty, and deformity, scattered through Hume's writings really amount to an "aesthetic theory," both the ubiquity of the language and the apparently unself-conscious way in which Hume employs it, provide good food for philosophical thought. Perhaps, one might speculate, there are systematic connections between the aesthetic dimension of Hume's thinking and his approach to epistemology and morals for which he is better known. While many have gestured towards such a (...) possibility, and a substantial body of work has grown around Hume's celebrated essay "Of the Standard of Taste," it is only with Dabney Townsend's Hume's Aesthetic Theory: Taste and Sentiment that a book-length study has been devoted specifically to this theme. The work should thus be of great interest to Hume scholars, aestheticians, and students of eighteenth-century thought more generally. (shrink)

Praise and blame can function to manage membership in informal social groups. We can be praised into groups, like if you remark on my good taste in music and invite me to have lunch with you. We can be blamed out of groups, like if I’m rude to your spouse and you stop inviting me to parties. These can move in the opposite direction, with praise removing you from a group and blame drawing you in. If we attend to the (...) way praise and blame shape our social world, we can revisit some debates about the ethics of praise and blame with new eyes. (shrink)

This book aims to give a coherent interpretation of the whole dialogue, paying particular attention to these etymologies.The book discusses the rival theories ...

In his writings Alfred Schutz identifies an artificiality in the concept of life-world produced by Edmund Husserl's method of reduction. As an alternative, he proposes to assume intersubjectivity as a given of everyday life. This eradicates Husserl's distinction between life-world and natural attitude. The subsequent phenomenological project appears to center upon sociological descriptions of the structures of the life-world rather than on a search for apodictic truth. Schutz, however, actually retains Husserl's emphasis on the subject. A tension then arises between (...) the assumption of intersubjectivity and individual experience. Rather than clarifying the concept of intersubjectivity, this further problematizes it. Drawing upon Max Weber's work, Schutz responds by developing a rigorous methodology for studying the social world. But having rejected Husserl's reduction and conflated life-world and natural attitude, Schutz's analysis moves at the level of daily life itself. Consequently, the explanatory categories he proposes appear as abstractions rather than as a way of describing lived experience. Schutz, it is concluded, initiates a scientistic sociology in which the commonsense structures of the natural attitude of everyday life are subverted and replaced by the more rigorous knowledge of the scientific attitude. Schutz's version of phenomenology is ultimately untrue to the spirit of Husserl's original project; and deploying his work as a clear-cut alternative to scientistic tendencies within sociology is not as straightforward as it might at first seem. (shrink)

Through our three-way collaboration we sought to understand Gaia and its political implications from the bottom-up and from within. Here we introduce that view of Gaia and how the dialogue between a philosopher (Bruno), a scientist (Tim), and a historian and philosopher of science (Séb) turned into a research programme. This sets in context a previously unpublished piece by Latour: ‘There is nothing simple in a feedback loop – or why goal function is not the problem of Gaia’.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CHARITY LOST: TBE SECtJLA'.RIZATfON OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT IN THE JUST-WAR TRADITION TIMOTHY M. RENICK Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia 0 N AUGUST 12, 1945, the city of Hiroshima still smoldered, and President Harry Truman addressed the American people : We have used [the atomic bomb] against those who have attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed (...) American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare. We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war.1 Truman and his military advisers had made a calculation. Japan was preparing for a last-ditch defense of the Japanese Islands. The prospect was ominous, to say the least. The United States had suffered eighty thousand casualties in the taking of the smaller and less protected Okinawa just two months earlier; 120,000 Japanese soldiers had been killed (and only ten-thousand taken prisoner). Strategists estimated that losses, both military and civilian, from a full scale battle for Japan itself would exceed one million. Surely the tens of thousands killed by exploding a bomb over Hiroshima was the lesser evil. Surely this was a proportionate act : fifty thousand lives traded for a million. As Winston Churchill wrote in support of Truman's decision: "To avert a vast, indefinite butchery... at the cost of a few explosions seemed, after all our toils and perils, a miracle of deliverance." 2 1 Michael Walzer, lust and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1979), p.164. 2 Ibid., pp. 266-267. 441 442 TIMOTHY M. RENICK From an ethical perspective, however, the act was anything but a deliverance. I am not alone in this assessment. Advocates of the just-war tradition including Elizabeth Anscombe, Paul Ramsey, George Kennan, John Langan, and Michael Walzer have condemned the bombing of Hiroshima by means of a shared just-war argument.8 The argument goes as follows, and it is a good one. In times of war, many actions are likely to have both good and evil effects. One destroys an enemy's munitions factory (good effect) but kills an innocent child in the process (evil effect). The jus in bello of the just-war tradition, however, stipulates that an action which has a " double effect " is permissible if and only if: ( 1) it is discriminate (i.e., the actor aims only at the good effect and does not intend the evil effect, nor is the evil effect a means to the end, however good); and (2) it is proportionate (i.e., the good created by the act outweighs the bad).4 Now, the argument continues, Truman's decision to bomb Hiroshima failed the first criterion. It was not a discriminate act because the evil effect (the killing of tens of thousands of Japanese civilians) was not unintended. In fact, the evil was the very means to the good end. Although Truman himself claimed to have selected Hiroshima as a target because it was "a war s See, for example, G. E. M. Anscombe, "Mr. Truman's Decision," in Ethics, Religion and Politics (Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1981); M. Walzer "Supreme Emergency," in Just and Unjust Wars; and John Langan, "The American Hierarchy and Nuclear Weapons," Theological Studies 43 (1982) : 447-467. ' I utilize here a helpful shorthand version of the principle of double effect introduced by Paul Ramsey in War and the Christian Conscience (Durham, North Carolina: Duke, 1961). More frequently, the principle is rendered by means of four criteria: It is permissible to perform an act likely to have evil consequences if and only if (I) the act is good in itself or at least indifferent; (2) the direct effect is morally justified; (3) the actor aims only at the acceptable effect and does not intend the evil effect, nor is the evil effect a means to the end, however good ; and (4) there is in the good effect a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect. The shortened version of the theory captures all components essential to my discussion and enhances clarity. I thus will make use of it throughout this essay. CHARITY AND... (shrink)

This volume offers readers a unique and comprehensive overview of theoretical perspectives on "the sublime," the singular aesthetic response elicited by phenomena that move viewers by transcending and overwhelming them. The book consists of an editor's introduction and fifteen chapters written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Part One examines philosophical approaches advanced historically to account for the phenomenon, beginning with Longinus, moving through eighteenth and nineteenth century writers in Britain, France, and Germany, and concluding with developments in contemporary continental (...) philosophy. Part Two explores the sublime with respect to particular disciplines and areas of study, including Dutch literature, early modern America, the environment, religion, British Romanticism, the fine arts, and architecture. Each chapter is both accessible for nonspecialists and offers an original contribution to its respective field of inquiry. (shrink)

While there is hardly an aspect of Hume’s work that has not produced controversy of one sort or another, deciphering and evaluating his views on aesthetics involves overcoming interpretive barriers of a particular sort. In addition to what is generally taken as the anachronistic attribution of “aesthetic theories” to any thinker of the eighteenth century, Hume presents the added difficulty that unlike the other founding-fathers of modern philosophical aesthetics, he produced no systematic work on the subject, and certainly nothing comparable (...) to his efforts in epistemology, morals, politics, history, and religion. Even interpreting Hume’s most definitive expression of his views on aesthetic questions—the famous essay “Of the Standard of Taste”—is fraught with difficulties and, as the diversity of views on the piece demonstrates, only the most confident reader would take it as an unambiguous statement of Hume’s position. (shrink)

Obesity is often considered a public health crisis in rich countries that might be alleviated by preventive regulations such as a sugar tax or limiting the density of fast food outlets. This paper evaluates these regulations from the point of view of equity. Obesity is in many countries correlated with socioeconomic status and some believe that preventive regulations would reduce inequity. The puzzle is this: how could policies that reduce the options of the badly off be more equitable? Suppose we (...) distinguish: (1) the badly off have poor options from (2) the badly off are poor at choosing between their options (ie, have a choosing problem). If obesity is due to a poverty of options, it would be perverse to reduce them further. Some people in public health say that preventive regulations do not reduce options but, I shall argue, they are largely wrong. So the equity case for regulations depends on the worst off having a choosing problem. It also depends on their having a choosing problem that makes their choices against their interests. Perhaps they do. I ask, briefly, what the evidence has to say about whether the badly off choose against their interests. The evidence is thin but implies that introducing preventive regulations for the sake of equity would be at least premature. (shrink)

This paper considers the claim that Hume washostile to religion and religious belief, andhoped for their demise. Part one examines hisapproach to belief, showing how commentatorstake him to see religious belief asnon-natural. Part two challenges thisconclusion by arguing, first, that Hume'sdistinction between natural and artificialvirtue allows the term ``natural'' to coverreligious belief as well; second, that Humehimself never denies religious belief isnatural, and, third, that he takes religion tobe a necessary part of any flourishing society. The target of Hume's critical (...) remarks onreligion, it is then emphasized, are forms of``false'' religion, which arise from thecorrupting influence of passion, hypocrisy,bigotry, enthusiasm, and superstition. Atbest, it is concluded, the claim that Hume washostile to religion requires qualification,while the view that he was in favor of itsactual demise is largely unwarranted. (shrink)

The problem St. Augustine confronts in the Confessions is fundamentally one of rhetoric: God should be singularly desirable, yet rhetoric seems necessary to motivate our pursuit of him. Religion participates in the relative marketplace of rhetoric, where ideals need to be authorized because they lack a self-sufficient rationale. In his early encounters with Cicero and the Platonists, Augustine struggles to renounce all such partial ideals in order to pursue philosophical truth unequivocally. Yet the refusal of rhetoric is, paradoxically, another willed (...) ideal authorized by its own rhetoric. Augustine ultimately escapes rhetoric in the conversion scene by demonstrating his inescapable subjection to it; in doing so, he surrenders his will in such a way as to permit God's grace to operate through him. His conversion ultimately results from this inverted humiliation, which forces Augustine to abdicate his ascetic efforts and pretensions. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of the imagination in Hume's epistemology. Three specific powers of the imagination are identified – the imagistic, conceptual and productive – as well as three corresponding kinds of fictions based on the degree of belief contained in each class of ideas the imagination creates. These are generic fictions, real and mere fictions, and necessary fictions, respectively. Through these manifestations, it is emphasized, Hume presents the imagination both as the positive force behind human creativity and a (...) subversive presence that transforms experience while at once making it possible. (shrink)

Uchiyama et al. reveal how group-structured cultural variation influences measurements of trait heritability. We argue that understanding culture's influence on phenotypic heritability can clarify the impact of culture on genetic inheritance, which has implications for long-term gene–culture coevolution. Their analysis may provide guidance for testing our hypothesis that cultural adaptation is superseding genetic adaptation in the long term.

I offer examples of what Catholic liturgical law regards as liturgical abuses. I provide examples of practices that are not formal abuses but raise questions of clericalism, noting that clericalism has contributed to the Catholic sex abuse crisis. I discuss (a) recourse to the tabernacle for distribution of Communion at Mass; (b) reserving one chalice at Mass for the exclusive use of the presider; (c) the installation Mass of Archbishop Nelson Pérez of Philadelphia; and (d) a Mass in Buffalo in (...) the wake of the resignation of then-Bishop Richard Malone. The paper concludes with reflections on what it means to offer worship to God that is necessarily imperfect. (shrink)

This paper explores the concept of an ?animal holocaust? by way of J.M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, and asks whether the Nazi treatment of the Jews can be legitimately compared to modern factory farming. While certain parallels make the comparison appealing, it is argued, only the holocaust can be described as ?evil.? The phenomena share another feature, however, namely, the capacity of perpetrators to render victims ?invisible.? This leaves the moral dimension of the comparison in tact since it shows (...) defenders and critics of an ?animal holocaust? to be talking about different things: the comparison is offensive for many because it levels degrees of moral value attributed to human and animal life, respectively, while for others it articulates the challenge of bringing non-human sentient beings into the same moral universe as their human counterparts. The paper concludes by asking whether such moral progress can ever render the death of human beings and animals similar in kind. (shrink)

Nearly all studies of consumers’ willingness to engage in ethical or socially responsible purchasing behavior is based on unconstrained survey response methods. In the present article we ask the question of how well does asking consumers the extent to which they care about a specific social or ethical issue relate to how they would behave in a more constrained environment where there is no socially acceptable response. The results of a comparison between traditional survey questions of “intention to purchase” and (...) estimates of individuals willingness-to-pay for social attributes in products reveal that simple survey questions are too “noisy” to provide operationally meaningful information and overstate intentions to a considerable extent. (shrink)

DNA helicases are a class of molecular motors that catalyze processive unwinding of double stranded DNA. In spite of much study, we know relatively little about the mechanisms by which these enzymes carry out the function for which they are named. Most current views are based on inferences from crystal structures. A prominent view is that the canonical ATPase motor exerts a force on the ssDNA resulting in “pulling” the duplex across a “pin” or “wedge” in the enzyme leading to (...) a mechanical separation of the two DNA strands. In such models, DNA base pair separation is tightly coupled to ssDNA translocation of the motors. However, recent studies of the Escherichia coli RecBCD helicase suggest an alternative model in which DNA base pair melting and ssDNA translocation occur separately. In this view, the enzyme‐DNA binding free energy is used to melt multiple DNA base pairs in an ATP‐independent manner, followed by ATP‐dependent translocation of the canonical motors along the newly formed ssDNA tracks. Repetition of these two steps results in processive DNA unwinding. We summarize recent evidence suggesting this mechanism for RecBCD helicase action. (shrink)

This paper traces the systematic connections between the structure of Hume's argument in "Of the Standard of Taste" and the way Kant presents the Antinomy of Taste in his Critique of Judgment. It is argued, however, that although there are striking parallels between the way Hume and Kant formulate their respective antinomies, there are significant differences in the way the two philosophers solve them. For while Hume's approach reflects his scepticism about the place of philosophy in common life, Kant's solution (...) confirms his view that philosophy can effectively correct the errors into which human reason naturally falls. (shrink)

“The heresy of heresies was common sense.” —George Orwell, 1984. This book is a defense of common-sense realism, which is the greatest heresy of our time. Following common-sense philosophers like Thomas Aquinas, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Dallas Willard, and J. P. Moreland, this book defends a common-sense vision of reality within the Christian tradition. Mosteller shows how common-sense realism is more reasonable than the materialist, idealist, pragmatist, existentialist, and relativist spirits of our age. It maintains that we can (...) know the nature of reality through common-sense experience and that this knowledge has profound implication for living the good life and being a good person. (shrink)

A debate between two aestheticians concerning the relative influence of Scottish and German philosophers on the contemporary discipline. -/- .

This paper argues that an important feature of Locke's doctrine concerning primary and secondary qualities is also central to Hume's thinking. Section one considers Locke's distinction, presenting it in terms of an "error theory." Locke argues that we attribute secondary qualities to objects and that in so doing give those qualities an ontological status they do not otherwise possess. Locke completes his theory by drawing on the concept of "resemblance" to explain why such mistakes occur in the first place. Section (...) two turns to Hume's philosophy, arguing that, despite his ambiguous comments on Locke and "the modern philosophy," he employs an error theory of the sort developed by Locke. This contention is supported by way of Hume's treatment of beauty as a secondary quality or sentiment which arises in an individual who judges an object beautiful. The paper concludes by emphasizing that, for Hume, this philosophical explanation of beauty stands in contrast to the error committed in common life where, as in Locke's account, people make the mistake of taking beauty to be in the object itself. (shrink)

This paper investigates the concept of “sociology” and the logical limits which, it is argued, are imposed upon its practice by the nature of the subject matter it investigates. This thesis is developed, first, by examining Michael Oakeshott’s distinction between “technical” and “practical” knowledge, and his concept of “abridgment”. The view of human action which follows from this is then applied to sociological practice in order to show how the latter involves a unique sort of abridgment. Then, drawing on Ludwig (...) Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy, it is argued that sociological inquiry has its own form of investigation which is most accurately termed “description”. Finally, Harvey Sacks' notion of “primitive, natural science” is critically examined as an account of social science which approximates most closely to the one being articulated here. The weakness of Sacks’ account, it is suggested, can be explained by his failure to appreciate the Oakeshottian insights about human action with which the argument began. The paper concludes by drawing out some implications of the proposed thesis. (shrink)

This essay examines Hume’s treatment of money in light of his view of the imagination. It begins with his claim that money is distinct from wealth, the latter arising, according to vulgar reasoning, from the power of acquisition that it represents, or, understood philosophically, from the labor that produces it. The salient features that Hume identifies with the imagination are then put forth, namely its power to combine ideas creatively and the principle of easy transition that characterizes its movement among (...) them. Two issues that these features explain are then discussed: first, why people take value to lie in the material of which money is made, and, second, why they assign value to what they take money to represent, namely, wealth. In both cases, the imagination creates a new relation, an illusion or fiction, that cannot be traced directly to experience. In the case of money, the faculty conjoins what is intangible (the power of acquisition) with the physical qualities of specie; in the case of property it produces a causal relation that connects persons with objects to constitute stable possession that constitutes ownership. Hume also appeals to the imagination to explain the rules of property that subsequently develop (present possession, occupation, prescription, and transference). The essay concludes by emphasizing that being based on the imagination is not in itself indicative of any instability in either money or property and the practices they enshrine, a feature they share with other phenomena (such as the self and continued existence) that Hume also traces to the same faculty. (shrink)