Real and Personal Rights.—In different systems of legal nomenclature the term “right” has different meanings, some writers applying it in a restricted, and others in a wider, sense. I shall use it in its wider sense as including “personal rights,” “proprietary rights,” “powers,” “liberties,” “licences,” and so on. The precise meaning of these various kinds of right need not be discussed here, because all legal rights can be broadly divided into two main classes—“personal rights” and “real rights.” As reference will (...) occasionally be made to this broad distinction, a brief explanation of its character is necessary. According to Gloag and Henderson, the difference between real rights and personal rights is correlative to the distinction between duties and obligations. Thus, if I have the full proprietary right in a certain article, including possession and use, this is called a Real Right; and I can make the demand against men in general, or “the world at large,” that my possession and use should not be interfered with. The world at large owes me the Duty of non-interference. I may, however, lend my property to someone for a stated period; and at the end of this period I have the right that he in particular should perform the specific act of returning my property to me. Here it is said that I have a Personal Right against him, and that he has an Obligation to perform this specific act. (shrink)

DBS Think Tank IX was held on August 25–27, 2021 in Orlando FL with US based participants largely in person and overseas participants joining by video conferencing technology. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers can freely discuss current and emerging deep brain stimulation technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think Tank IX speakers was that DBS expanded in (...) its scope and has been applied to multiple brain disorders in an effort to modulate neural circuitry. After collectively sharing our experiences, it was estimated that globally more than 230,000 DBS devices have been implanted for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. As such, this year’s meeting was focused on advances in the following areas: neuromodulation in Europe, Asia and Australia; cutting-edge technologies, neuroethics, interventional psychiatry, adaptive DBS, neuromodulation for pain, network neuromodulation for epilepsy and neuromodulation for traumatic brain injury. (shrink)

Das »Richtige und das Gute« (1930), das ethische Hauptwerk W. D. Ross’, enthält eine Vielzahl wichtiger moralphilosophischer Thesen und Argumente, die bis in die Gegenwart kontrovers diskutiert werden. Im Mittelpunkt steht seine pluralistische Deontologie, der zufolge sich die richtige Handlung aus einer Abwägung der in der jeweiligen Situation relevanten und unableitbaren Prima-facie-Pflichten ergibt, von denen nur ein Teil auf die Optimierung der Handlungsfolgen bezogen ist. Diese Deontologie wurde zu einem modernen Klassiker unter den normativen ethischen Theorien. Darüber hinaus stellt Ross’ (...) These, dass moralische Intuitionen eine Quelle selbstevidenten Wissens sein können, einen wichtigen Referenzpunkt in Debatten um den erkenntnistheoretischen Fundamentalismus dar. Auch für die Handlungstheorie liefert Ross einflussreiche Argumente, wenn er die Ansicht vertritt, dass Pflichten nie ein bestimmtes Motiv des Handelnden zum Gegenstand haben können. Eine zentrale Stellung nimmt für Ross die Güterlehre ein, in welcher er von vier Grundgütern, Tugend, Wissen, Lust und Gerechtigkeit, ausgeht. Wurde Ross in den ersten Jahrzehnten des 20. Jahrhunderts im damaligen Großbritannien als ein herausragender Ethiker – einer der bedeutendsten des Jahrhunderts, auf Augenhöhe mit G.E. Moore – angesehen, wandelte sich das Meinungsbild in den folgenden Jahrzehnten unter dem Einfluss besonders des Logischen Positivismus und der Philosophie Wittgensteins. In den letzten Jahrzehnten ist jedoch wieder ein wachsendes Interesse an Ross’ Ethik festzustellen. Dabei wird »Das Richtige und das Gute« bisweilen sogar mit der »Nikomachischen Ethik«, Kants »Grundlegung« und Humes »Untersuchung über die Prinzipien der Moral« verglichen. (shrink)

A recent article on ‘The Number of Speaking Actors in Old Comedy’ by D. M. MacDowell has argued that to perform the plays of Aristophanes required the use of four, but never five, speaking actors.1 Systematically argued, MacDowell presents a cogent case against Henderson , who has suggested that at times five actors were permitted. MacDowell also presents some very sensible observations on the nature of any prescription which might limit the number of actors. The final paragraphs, however, express (...) considerable discomfort at the earliest work in the extant corpus: 'Akharnians, however, remains problematic, since it has two scenes which may be thought to require five actors' . A tentative solution is offered by MacDowell, which is that 'these scenes were actually performed without a fifth actor, by making very quick changes in the scene with Amphitheos and the Envoy, and by using dolls for the Megarian's Daughters' . Unspeaking performers for the Megarian's Daughters are more likely than dolls, since they must follow orders for movement . Apart from this, I have no doubt that this is indeed how Akharnians was performed, and an examination of the specific comic techniques employed by Aristophanes in the two problematic scenes in Akharnians demonstrates not only the comic desirability of their use, but their applicability to other plays by Aristophanes. (shrink)

It is sometimes suggested that the logic of religious language differs from other kinds of language. Or it is said that each ‘language-game’ has its own ‘logic’ and that, whatever usual language-games are played in the context of religion, there is something that could be called the ‘religious language-game’ which does not correspond to any other and, therefore, has its own peculiar logic. In either case, religious people are urged to make clear what this logic is, so that their utterances (...) may be understood and evaluated. (shrink)

At the beginning of his book, Principles of Christian Theology, John Macquarrie says that theology ‘implicitly claims to have its place in the total intellectual endeavour of mankind’. The question I want to discuss is this: in what terms, if any, can that claim be justified?

I want to put forward a certain view of the logical foundation of religious belief. It is, in a sentence, the view that religious belief is constituted by the concept of god. This view will be discussed under three headings. First, I shall explain as clearly as I can what I mean by it. Secondly, I shall indicate what seem to me to be interesting parallels, both with regard to universes of discourse in general and to religious belief in particular, (...) between my idea of a constitutive concept and Wittgenstein's ideas of a fundamental proposition and a religious ‘picture’. Thirdly, I shall try to substantiate the view I take of the logical foundation of religious belief by rebutting three conceivable objections to it: namely, that it rests on an illegitimate craving for generality, that it is at variance with common usage, and that it consigns religious belief to an intellectual ghetto. (shrink)

A significant share of the U.S. federal R&D budget is devoted to large-scale, complex technological systems commonly referred to as "big science. " Over the last two decades, these systems have continued to grow in size, complexity, development time, and cost. At the same time, political changes in the United States, particularly the concern over government spending and the federal budget deficit, have made it more difficult for proponents to secure and preserve support for these programs over their lifetimes. Using (...) the U.S. space shuttle and space station programs as examples, the article shows that the political requirements for obtaining approval and funding for large and expensive research and development projects create conditions that reduce the likelihood that they will succeed technologically. The problems of technology-based projects like those of the U.S. space program are in fact deeply rooted in the American political process itself. (shrink)

Human aesthetic experiences are pervasive; they are triggered by faces, art, natural scenery, foods, ideas, theories, and decision-making situations, among many sources, and seem to be a distinctive trait of our species. Our moral sense, understood as our capacity to judge events, actions, or people as good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, also seems to be an exclusively human endowment (Ayala 2010). As part of the scientific efforts to characterize the biological foundations of our human uniqueness, recently there has been (...) interest in the brain’s underpinnings of aesthetic reactions to art on the one hand, and in the neural correlates of moral judgment and decision-making on the other (Greene and Paxton .. (shrink)

Offers a reading of philosopher David Hume regarding his views on practical reason. Arguments of Hume for his conception of practical reason; View of Hume on the influencing motives of the will; Approach of Hume on the standards of practical reasoning.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

I want to take issue with these views both by attempting to answer the arguments which have been given against regarding explanations in terms of the agent's reasons as causal and by giving some positive reasons for supposing that such explanations are a kind of causal explanation.