This chapter contains sections titled: Distinguishing Different Kinds of Egalitarianism Equality, Fairness, Luck, and Responsibility Equality of What? The Subsistence Level, Sufficiency, and Compassion Prioritarianism and the Leveling Down Objection19 Equality or Priority? Illustrating Egalitarianism's Distinct Appeal Conclusion Notes.

What kind of equality should we value and why? Current debate centres around whether distributive equality is valuable. However, it is not the only (potentially) morally significant form of equality. David Miller and T. M. Scanlon have emphasised the importance of social equality—a strongly egalitarian notion distinct from distributive equality, and which cannot be reduced to a concern for overall welfare or the welfare of the worst-off. However, as debate tends to focus (...) on distribution, social equality has been neglected and we do not have a clear understanding of what it is and why it might be valuable. This paper aims to address this gap. (shrink)

What kind of role, if any, can immigration policies play in moving us towards global justice? On one view, the removal of restrictions on immigration might seem to constitute great progress in realizing the desired goal. After all, people want to emigrate mainly because they perceive that their prospects for better lives are more likely to be secured elsewhere. If we remove restrictions on their ability to travel, would this not constitute an advance over the status quo in (...) which people are significantly prevented, through tough immigration restrictions, from seeking a better life for themselves and their dependants? In particular, it might seem that a cosmopolitan must be committed to reducing restrictions on immigration. On one common account of what cosmopolitanism is, the central idea is that every person has global stature as the ultimate unit of moral concern and is therefore entitled to equal respect and consideration no matter what her citizenship status or other affiliations happen to be. It is frequently supposed that a cosmopolitan must be committed to more open borders, and that developed countries restricting entry to people from developing countries is unjust and inconsistent with a commitment to our equal moral worth. However, as I argue, removing restrictions on immigration could constitute a considerable step backward for global justice. In order to appreciate why this is the case, we need to review some relevant empirical evidence that our policy recommendations must take into account. As we see, considerable benefits accrue to the immigrant and host nation, but significant costs must often be born in states of origin. As one example, we consider the effects of remittances often believed to be highly beneficial to the global poor. I discuss evidence indicating that patterns associated with remittances are not always at all desirable. Migration policies need to be better managed so that they do benefit the relevant stakeholders. In section 4 I give examples of how this might work. In section 5 we investigate what kinds of policy recommendations would be best given our findings. (shrink)

Advocates have sought to prove that underdetermination obtains because all theories have empirical equivalents. But algorithms for generating empirical equivalents simply exchange underdetermination for familiar philosophical chestnuts, while the few convincing examples of empirical equivalents will not support the desired sweeping conclusions. Nonetheless, underdetermination does not depend on empirical equivalents: our warrant for current theories is equally undermined by presently unconceived alternatives as well-confirmed merely by the existing evidence, so long as this transient predicament recurs for each theory and body (...) of evidence we consider. The historical record supports the claim that this recurrent, transient underdetermination predicament is our own. (shrink)

Advocates have sought to prove that underdetermination obtains because all theories have empirical equivalents. But algorithms for generating empirical equivalents simply exchange underdetermination for familiar philosophical chestnuts, while the few convincing examples of empirical equivalents will not support the desired sweeping conclusions. Nonetheless, underdetermination does not depend on empirical equivalents: our warrant for current theories is equally undermined by presently unconceived alternatives as well-confirmed merely by the existing evidence, so long as this transient predicament recurs for each theory and body (...) of evidence we consider. The historical record supports the claim that this recurrent, transient underdetermination predicament is our own. (shrink)

In recent years, the issue of accepting a higher cost per health improvement for orphan drugs has been the subject of discussion in health care policy agencies and the academic literature. This article aims to provide an analysis of broadly egalitarian arguments for and against accepting higher costs per health improvement. More specifically, we aim to investigate which arguments one should agree upon putting aside and where further explorations are needed. We identify three kinds of arguments in the literature: (...) considerations of substantial equality, formal equality, and opportunity cost. We argue that considerations of substantial equality do not support higher costs per health improvement orphan drugs, even if such considerations are considered valid. On the contrary, arguments of formal equality may support accepting a higher cost per health improvement for orphan drugs. However, in order to do so, a number of both normative and empirical issues must be resolved; these issues are identified in the article. For instance, it must be settled to what extent the opportunity cost in terms of foregone health for other patients is acceptable in order to uphold formal equality. We conclude that certain arguments can be set aside, and future focus should be put on the unresolved normative and empirical issues related to formal equality and opportunity cost. (shrink)

A common view of politics is that it is reducible to applied ethics. If politics, in a classic phrase, is about “who gets what, when, and how,” then the task of normative political theory would simply be to tell us who is morally entitled to get whatever the “what” is in that statement.This view, however, can easily reduce politics to a dizzying vortex of actions to assess from an ethical perspective. And while the task of moral philosophy may (...) be precisely to articulate principles by which to pass such judgment, the focus of political theory lies elsewhere.To study and assess politics means attending to the institutional frameworks and structural conditions that enable or constrain human action to begin with. The question for normative political theory, in other words, is whether the organizational structure of a given society—embodied in its decision-making procedures, its distribution of power, and its defining patterns of production, reproduction, and distribution—is defensible or not.This question of justice in the institutional makeup of society has not been entirely ignored in animal rights literature. Animal advocates have always been clear about the massive societal ramifications of dismantling the speciesist order. Likewise, rights theorists and activists have often proposed concrete legal measures for improving the protection of animals, be it by piecemeal welfare reform in animal agriculture, by the abolition of specific practices in biomedical research, or by seeking the equivalent of human rights for select species like great apes or dolphins. The field has also seen fierce debate among animal advocates about the appropriate strategies for engaging with the state and the legal system.Nonetheless, most discussions have been about what it means to treat individual animals with respect, and not about what is required of a political order aspiring to just treatment of all species. In fact, it is only in the last decade that the issue of political justice has taken up a place at the center of animal ethics.Though the field is still developing, we may take it as a sign of maturity that it can now sport its first “short introduction” book: Alasdair Cochrane's Should Animals Have Political Rights? (2020). Its appearing as part of the Polity Press series Political Theory Today further attests to the book's timeliness.The starting point of Cochrane's book—and of political animal studies in general—is that political relations between humans and other animals are not optional but inevitable. Other animals live among us, and the way we organize our societies has a massive impact on the lives of other sentient animals both inside and outside the borders of our human communities. Assuming that these creatures possess intrinsic value as experiencing individuals with morally relevant interests, the question seems inescapable: What kind of polity can accommodate for the multispecies character of our communities and embody justice for all sentients? Cochrane's answer is largely the same as the one he offered in his previous book, Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice (Oxford University Press, 2018), where he laid out his full vision of a postnational and species-neutral “cosmozoopolis.”The present book is much more concentrated and written as an accessible introduction for readers new to the field. Over seven short chapters, Cochrane reconstructs his argument for an interspecies democracy by assessing a series of arguments and propositions drawn from previous literature on the topic.The first notion to be scrutinized is the popular idea that animal welfare legislation is enough to secure respect for animals. Here, Cochrane acknowledges that welfarism goes some way toward safeguarding animal interests, but he also stresses that its historical record has been disheartening. Welfarism protects animals only insofar as their protection coincides with human interests, and this is far from enough to ensure respect for the animals’ intrinsic value.The second line of argument tries to push beyond welfarism by claiming constitutional protection for animals. By this move, reformers hope to place animal interests on an equal footing with human interests and prevent the overriding of the former in the name of human entitlements (to property, artistic expression, freedom of science, and so forth). Looking at real-world cases, however, Cochrane finds that these constitutional provisions tend to be sidelined when they come into conflict with the interests of big agribusiness.Noting that more than constitutional protection is needed, Cochrane turns to a third set of arguments about legal personhood for animals. Winning personhood for animals would certainly constitute a radical step toward equalizing the interests of different species. Nonetheless, Cochrane argues that personhood alone would be insufficient. Intrinsic value, to him, cannot be fully respected unless animals win the political right to have their interests factor into society's articulation of the public good. As sentient beings, we can all make a claim on the political communities we are part of to not only recognize us as members but furnish us with the means to live well.The fourth and final step for Cochrane is to argue that democratic representation for animals is necessary for realizing these political membership rights. Without representation, he contends, political rights risk being watered down, leaving animals with much less than they are entitled to as sentient beings. Cochrane critically discusses several different models for how this representation could be organized. While he is partial to a system where specially trained human representatives are tasked with voicing the animals’ interests in the legislative process, he leaves many of the practicalities open for future experimentation.Readers familiar with the field of political animal studies will find little new in Should Animals Have Political Rights? For students new to the field, however, Cochrane's book does an excellent job introducing the main issues in a very accessible format. Students of “regular” political science will also benefit from the book's fresh challenge to the discipline's understanding of “the political” as well as its important insights into the relationship between individual and political rights. (shrink)

From the perspective of many philosophers of mind in these early years of the 21st Century, the debate between dualism and physicalism has seemed to have stalled, if not to have come to a complete standstill. There seems to be no way to settle the basic clash of intuitions that underlies it. Recently however, a growing number of proponents of Russellian monism have suggested that their view promises to show us a new way forward. Insofar as Russellian monism might (...) allow us to break out of the current gridlock, it's no wonder that it's become "hot stuff." To my mind, however, the excitement about Russellian monism is misplaced. Though some version of Russellian monism might well be true, I do not believe that it enables us to break free of the dualism/physicalism divide. As I will argue, once we properly understand what's required to flesh out an adequate monistic story, we will see that we are in an important way right back where we started. (shrink)

In his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Alan Turing proposed that we can determine whether a machine thinks by considering whether it can win at a simple imitation game. A neutral questioner communicates with two different systems – one a machine and a human being – without knowing which is which. If after some reasonable amount of time the machine is able to fool the questioner into identifying it as the human, the machine wins the game, and we (...) class='Hi'>should conclude that it thinks. This imitation game, now known as the Turing Test, has been much discussed by philosophers of mind, and for more than half a century now there has been considerable debate about whether it is an adequate test for thinking. But what has not been much discussed are the sexed presuppositions underlying the test. Too often forgotten in the philosophical discussion is the fact that Turing’s imitation game is modeled on an imitation game in which a neutral questioner communicates with two different humans – one a man and one a woman – without knowing which is which. In this original imitation game, the man wins the game if he is able to fool the questioner into identifying him as the woman. In this paper, I explore the implications of this set-up. As I argue, the fact that the Turing test was modeled on a man/woman imitation game seems to have led us astray in various ways in our attempt to conduct an effective investigation and assessment of computer intelligence. (shrink)

The concept of desert, which once enjoyed a central place in political and ethical theory, has been relegated to the margins of much of contemporary theory, if not excluded altogether. Recently a renewed interest in the topic has emerged, and several philosophers have argued that the notion merits a more central place in political and ethical theory. Some of these philosophers contend that justice exists to the extent that people receive exactly what they deserve, while others argue that desert (...) should replace such considerations as rights, need, and equality as the basis for distributions. Still others argue that morality involves a fitting match between one's moral character and a degree of happiness. All of these positions have encountered opposition from egalitarians, libertarians, and those who are skeptical about the coherence of the concept of desert. The first anthology of its kind, What Do We Deserve? is a balanced collection of readings that brings sharply opposing positions and arguments together and stimulates debate over the meaning and significance of desert in current thought. The book begins with eight classical readings on desert (by Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Smith, Kant, Mill, Sidgwick, and Ross), and later turns to contemporary interpretations of the issue. The selections examine the concept itself, analyze its relationship to the ideas of freedom and responsibility, engage in the debate between John Rawls and his critics on the merits of desert, and, finally, study the wider role and significance of desert in political and ethical theory. (shrink)

The study of social, ethical, and political issues from a naturalistic perspective has been pervasive in social sciences and the humanities in the last decades. This articulation of empirical research with philosophical and normative reflection is increasingly getting attention in academic circles and the public spheres, given the prevalence of urgent needs and challenges that society is facing on a global scale. The contemporary world is full of challenges or what some philosophers have called ‘existential risks’ to humanity. Nuclear (...) wars, natural and/or engineered pandemics, climate change, global totalitarianism, and emergent technologies, are some of the challenges mentioned by many authors devoted to the study of long-term potential risks for the survival of the human species. However, while there are many reasons to be a pessimist about the future of humanity, there is also a lot of ink wasted in showing that the world today is far better than we had in the past and also that there have been many instances of social and moral progress in the last centuries. Some authors have even claimed that “we have made more progress over the last 100 years than in the first 100,000”. According to ‘our world in data’, some of the most relevant advances of humanity in the last centuries have to do with the reduction of poverty and/or inequality, better health and security, the decline of violence and war, and the development of democracy and institutional mechanisms to guarantee individual freedom and rights. Yet, there is a more concrete concern that our world faces nowadays, and requires a particularly detailed analysis. In a few words, the advance in information and communication technologies, the huge volume of people migration because of prevalent instances of global inequality, and the reality of an interconnected world that just mirrors an extensive history of massive human intergroup relations open the question about the feasibility of social and moral progress in the contexts of diverse, multicultural, and unequal societies. This makes it crucial to reflect not only on whether human societies may keep advancing on a path of social progress, but how this can be achieved by addressing the challenges of inequality and potential intergroup conflict. This concern closely relates to the further consolidation of democratic values and the achievement of a more generalized consideration of the equal moral value of human individuals far from group, ethnic, or collective distinctions. This vision of progress follows the moral convictions that have been considered right and worthy to be pursued by most ethical theories explored by philosophers and social scientists so far. This work aims to contribute to the study of the mechanisms and feasibility of social and moral progress grounded on the precept of human equality and is guided by the idea that social and moral progress in a plural world requires the accomplishment of a more democratic and tolerant society. These forms of progress have already been defined by philosophers Allen Buchanan and Russel Powell as inclusivist forms of moral progress. According to these authors, inclusivist moral progress is featured by the transformation of moral judgments, motivations, and norms guided by the rejection of “group-based restrictions on moral standing and moral status” (2018). The work of Buchanan and Powell is fundamental for the argumentation developed in this work since they have pioneered a more complex debate in the field of evolutionary social sciences and philosophical anthropology. In brief, these authors have inquired how human nature, conceptualized by the advances in evolutionary thinking and the empirical sciences, is related to our moral convictions and the possibilities that we have to establish certain forms of social and moral progress. The work of Buchanan and Powell contributes to the debate on moral progress by incorporating empirically-informed concepts and arguments. With this objective in mind, they develop their discussion around a generalized tension between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of moral progress. This tension revolves around the question of whether and to what extent human moral concerns, motivations, and norms, are limited or bounded by social identities, group thinking, or collective values. This question is at the center of this work. In other words, I aim to answer whether and to what extent the nature of our social and moral cognition hinders or enables the development of inclusivist forms of morality and moral progress. As I mentioned so far, the distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist forms of morality has a practical implication and facilitates the reflection on the mechanisms and feasibility of concrete forms of progress based on the precept of human equality, which is the road to progress that we should follow according to most ethical theories. The distinction between exclusivist and inclusivist morality is not used here as a form of summarizing highly divergent descriptive approaches to morality, but as a way to address the practical implications of morality research, particularly around the question of the feasibility of social forms of progress based on the precept of equality and tolerance. My objective then has less to do with offering a conceptualization of human morality or with the proposition of a new ethical perspective. Instead, I aim to identify, from an empirically informed perspective, what enables the achievement of egalitarian forms of social progress, to subsequently offer a normative reflection about what we should do if we want to accomplish such inclusivist forms of progress. This task is of great relevance, having in mind that some theoretical proposals on the matter have claimed that human prosocial behavior and morality are constrained by exclusivist fixed tendencies as a product of our evolutionary history. According to these views, human morality is a group-centered cognitive and behavioral expression that has severe limits in its scope and extent, which hinders in the end the emergence of inclusivist forms of moral concerns and behaviors. These claims align with the philosophical intuition about the ‘dissociation of empathy’, or the fact that human individuals tend to express empathy and sympathy preferably for members of their group whereas their empathic and moral concern and recognition for outgroup individuals tend to be reduced or eliminated in real-life social interactions. Multiple theorists have expressed, however, that these assumptions are wrong for empirical and philosophical reasons, which results in a serious challenge to the conception of human morality as exclusivist by nature. Furthermore, simple intuition and practical experience constantly show us that human individuals can develop and endorse a broad spectrum of moral considerations and adopt an arguably inclusivist stance concerning the kind of persons or agents that deserve moral concern. Moreover, and adopting a historical perspective, the expansion of cultural and commercial exchanges, the consolidation of democracy, the development of welfare states, or the emergence of institutions based on the concept of universal human rights, have partially driven human progress based on the impartial concern for the well-being of persons. These historical instances of cultural evolution and institutional design have shown that it is feasible to promote behaviors and attitudes grounded in impersonal prosocial and inclusivist principles. This optimistic perspective, however, still begs the question of the exact relationship between social, cultural, and historical contexts, and the emergence of certain behavioral expressions of inclusivist morality. This is crucial since a great number of human individuals around the world still do not make part of these instances of social progress, and some authors have suggested that such instances of social and moral progress are particularly favored by the contexts of the WEIRD world, that is the world of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic societies. Some of these approaches consider moral inclusivity a ‘luxury good’ and follow the ‘dependency thesis’ according to which the expression of moral inclusivity depends on the presence of very concrete material conditions that trigger inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. This thesis is problematic for various reasons and has led to incomplete explanations about the enabling and causal factors of inclusivist moral progress, as well as unsatisfactory suggestions about what we should do to foster the accomplishment of more generalized instances of progress based on inclusivist concerns. In an attempt to contribute to this debate, the main objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative proposal about the nature of human morality and a more detailed reflection on what we should do if we want to further accomplish such instances of progress. More precisely, this work adopts a particular developmental and constructivist vision of human morality to answer the question of how feasible it is to reach generalized forms of social progress based on the precepts of moral inclusivity. Furthermore, it offers some ideas about what are the most adequate and favorable conditions to foster such progress both at the individual and the collective level. At this point, a preliminary clarification of some starting points is necessary. In the first place, and contrary to what other authors have proposed when debating moral progress from an empirically-based approach, my perspective adopts a radical developmental and constructivist perspective, following particularly the conceptual and empirical ideas of the social-domain theory in moral psychology. From this perspective, morality is a domain of normative and social knowledge that develops and emerges in human interactions. Moral concerns, judgments, and norms are not only the result of the expression of innate adaptive intuitions, nor the product of social conformity and a simple process of mirroring the normativity that communities have established to organize their social life. Human individuals, instead, construct moral concerns and judgments during their situated interactions. More specifically, the constructivist tradition claims that we need to research how moral concerns, judgments, and reasons emerge in social interactions and how human beings construct the content of their moral knowledge in the first place. Based on these ideas, morality is defined here as the result of a constructive process through which human individuals, by the means of constant interactions on a background of mutual respect and recognition, develop evaluative concerns about how we ought to treat others, and how to ‘care’ and ‘respect’ others’ well-being, needs, and vulnerabilities. This developmental-constructivist theory of human psychology contributes to an alternative understanding of the origins of moral variability and informs a very particular normative stance about the most desirable contexts needed for the urgent accomplishment of inclusivist forms of morality in contemporary societies. This is so given that the very same definition of morality adopted presupposes the feature of inclusivity. The main objective of this work is then to argue, based on a developmental perspective, what are the most favorable conditions to foster the development of moral inclusivity and what we should do to accomplish concrete instances of moral progress that truly help us to overcome our most urgent moral challenges. The whole thesis is organized as follows. In part I, I show how received visions about human social evolution have informed conceptions of morality as an adaptive function evolved to solve the challenges of cooperative life. Based on these assumptions, some theories argue that human morality is limited by the boundaries of group thinking, and always obeys the mandates of collective interests and the will of the majority. However, this conception has problematic implications from a normative and ethical perspective. The aim of Chapter 1 is to present this introductory debate in detail. In chapter 2, I consider a relevant amount of scientific evidence that helps to consolidate a more optimistic and inclusivist perspective about the starting conditions of human prosocial behavior. Later, I will summarize some ideas offered to explain the possible evolutionary mechanisms that led to the consolidation of these inclusivist capacities. However, I will also show how evolutionary theories that share the same adaptationist foundations but initially seem relevant to explain the feasibility of moral inclusivity, result incomplete when considering the complexity of moral behavior and its ethical implications. Part II is devoted to presenting a developmental alternative to the adaptationist versions around the starting conditions of morality. In this section, I first summarize the epistemological, conceptual, and empirical basis of a constructivist perspective already proposed by several authors in the last decades. This is the goal of chapter 3. More precisely, I adopt the conceptualization of morality established by the social-domain theory school and clarify its conception of the situated development of moral concerns, motivations, and norms. All these ideas are essential for my argumentation on the feasibility of inclusivist moral progress offered later. Chapter 4 provides a more detailed idea of constructivist thinking about moral development, by analyzing one particular dimension: the development of moral concerns for fairness and the sense of justice in distributive dilemmas. In Part III, I assume a constructivist perspective on morality to contribute to the philosophy of moral progress. In particular, I discuss the implications of such a perspective for the conceptualization of human moral nature and discuss what are the most favorable conditions for moral inclusivity to emerge. Answering that question is of enormous relevance since favoring the transition of human societies towards more inclusivist forms of moral concern and behavior supposes a more generalized accomplishment of our most urgent moral convictions. Previous developmental or culturally-sensible attempts to explore this issue are already on the market. As mentioned before, most authors have approached the topic by situating the cultural evolution and development of (inclusivist) moral progress in the WEIRD world. For instance, some of these authors claim that very concrete material conditions (mostly present in the Western World) have been necessary for triggering inclusivist and impersonal prosocial tendencies that human beings are not able to express in threatening contexts without physical security. Despite their interest in explaining inclusivist morality and the feasibility of inclusivist forms of progress following a naturalistic and culturally situated approach, these theories are problematic for two main reasons. In the first place, most of the authors that explain moral progress tend to focus exclusively on the consolidation of liberal values in the Western world and the underlying adoption of laws, social-epistemic practices, and public narratives about tolerance and inclusivity, as unequivocal signs of inclusivist morality. Nevertheless, there is an enormous distance between the institutional and public support of inclusivist moral values or the construction of public images of tolerance and inclusivity, and the real materialization of impersonal moralities in situated social interactions. Secondly, the variability of human moral behavior is far bigger than most of the theories in moral psychology and moral progress tend to assume. Accordingly, inclusivist and exclusivist forms of morality may develop simultaneously in similar or divergent geographical and socio-ecological environments, including those with harsh conditions such as competition for scarce resources, potential intergroup conflict, and risks of disease transmission. In addition, harsh environmental conditions are usually present in almost all societies around the globe, and the presence of socio-ecological conditions such as physical security and prosperity, predominant in highly resourced populations, do not prevent the existence of exclusivist moral tendencies. My model explores a different perspective on the relationships between cultural, institutional, and historical factors, and the situated development of human morality. This supposes a clear distinction from previous approaches to the matter since it offers a different view on what we should do to pursue further instances of inclusivist social progress. In the fifth chapter, I first analyze the proposals of some defenders of the ‘dependency’ theory. The attention is focused on the ‘Evolutionary Developmental Model’ proposed by Buchanan and Powell (2018). Based on a critique of this approach, I will argue that to explain the evolution and development of human morality in its multiple manifestations, it is essential to put focus on social interactions. This also involves a different perspective on human-environment relations that in line with a constructivist worldview makes an innovative contribution to the philosophy of moral behavior and moral progress. Later, in the sixth chapter, I will define my alternative relational view of inclusivist morality and I will offer my view on how to establish favorable conditions that make inclusivist morality possible. Complementing the constructivist approach, my conception is based on the essential role of equality and individuality and on how moral inclusivity is favored if moral concerns do not develop driven by the accomplishment of group-centered, binding, and communitarian concerns and values. In brief, my relational model suggests that the accomplishment of moral inclusivity not only depends on the overall achievement of certain levels of physical security or economic prosperity. Instead, its development is favored by transforming the interactional contexts in which moral concerns towards autonomy and individuality emerge. In arguing so, I will need to start with a critique of contemporary situated and embodied approaches in ethics. Then, I will show how societies guided by the accomplishment of group-centered values of power, dominance, and relational inequality tend to express exclusivist moral behaviors, while individualistic societies tend to be more inclusivist. Starting from this diagnosis, my final attempt is then to reflect on which are the best conditions for the moral valuation of individuality to emerge and what we should do to promote the accomplishment of moral inclusivity at the societal level. (shrink)

If the physical constants, initial conditions, or laws of nature in our universe had been even slightly different, then the evolution of life would have been impossible. This observation has led many philosophers and scientists to ask the natural next question: why is our universe so "fine-tuned" for life? The debates around this question are wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary, complicated, technical, and heated. This study is a comprehensive investigation of these debates and the many metaphysical and epistemological questions raised by (...) cosmological fine-tuning. Waller's study reaches two significant and controversial conclusions. First, he concludes that the criticisms directed at the "multiverse hypothesis" by theists and at the "theistic hypothesis" by naturalists are largely unsuccessful. Neither of these options can plausibly be excluded. Choosing between them seems to turn on primitive metaphysical intuitions. Second, in order to break the philosophical deadlock, Waller moves the debate from the level of universes to the level of possible worlds. Arguing that possible worlds are also "fine-tuned" in an important and interesting sense, Waller concludes that the only plausible explanation for the fine-tuning of the actual world is to posit the existence of some kind of "God-like-thing.". (shrink)

In health care, the provision of pertinent information to patients is not just a moral imperative but also a legal obligation, often articulated through the lens of obtaining informed consent. Codes of medical ethics and many national laws mandate the disclosure of basic information about diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment alternatives. However, within publicly funded health care systems, other kinds of information might also be important to patients, such as insights into the health care priorities that underlie treatment offers made. (...) While conventional perspectives do not take this as an obligatory part of the information to be shared with patients, perhaps through viewing it as clinically “non-actionable,” we advocate for a paradigm shift. Our proposition diverges from the traditional emphasis on actionability. We contend that honoring patients as equal moral agents necessitates, among other principles, a commitment to honesty. Withholding specific categories of information pertinent to patients’ comprehension of their situation is inherently incompatible with this principle. In this article, we advocate for a recalibration of the burden of proof. Rather than requiring special justifications for adding to the standard set of information items, we suggest that physicians should be able to justify excluding relevant facts about the patient’s situation and the underlying considerations shaping health care professionals’ choices. This perspective prioritizes transparency and empowers patients with a comprehensive understanding, aligning with the ethos of respect for the patient as person. (shrink)

Based on metatheoretical considerations, this article discusses what kinds of traffic forecasts are possible and what kinds are impossible to make with any reasonable degree of accuracy. It will be argued on ontological and epistemological grounds that it is inherently impossible to make exact predictions about the magnitude of the ‘general’ traffic growth 20-30 years ahead, since many of the influencing factors depend on inherently unpredictable geopolitical trajectories as well as contested political decision-making. Due to the context-dependency (...) of each particular planning situation, it is also hardly possible to make exact, quantitative predictions about the impact of implementing a specific infrastructure project, compared to ‘doing nothing’. Instead of relying on traffic model simulations as the general forecasting and assessment tool in transport planning, we propose to separate the so-called strategic, tactical and operational levels of traffic forecasting into three distinct methodological approaches reflecting the different degrees of openness/closure of the systems at hand: scenario analyses at the strategic level; theory-informed, mainly qualitative analyses supplemented with simple calculations at the tactical level; while more traditional micro-simulations should be applied only at a detailed operational level. (shrink)

Based on metatheoretical considerations, this article discusses what kinds of traffic forecasts are possible and what kinds are impossible to make with any reasonable degree of accuracy. It will be argued on ontological and epistemological grounds that it is inherently impossible to make exact predictions about the magnitude of the ‘general’ traffic growth 20–30 years ahead, since many of the influencing factors depend on inherently unpredictable geopolitical trajectories as well as contested political decision-making. Due to the context-dependency (...) of each particular planning situation, it is also hardly possible to make exact, quantitative predictions about the impact of implementing a specific infrastructure project, compared to ‘doing nothing’. Instead of relying on traffic model simulations as the general forecasting and assessment tool in transport planning, we propose to separate the so-called strategic, tactical and operational levels of traffic forecasting into three distinct methodological approaches reflecting the different degrees of openness/closure of the systems at hand: scenario analyses at the strategic level; theory-informed, mainly qualitative analyses supplemented with simple calculations at the tactical level; while more traditional micro-simulations should be applied only at a detailed operational level. (shrink)

In many places around the world the modern school is under a relentless pressure to perform and the standards for such performance are increasingly being set by the global education measurement industry. All this puts a pressure on schools, teachers and students but also on policy makers and politicians, who all seem to have been caught up in a global educational rat-race. There is a discourse of panic about educational quality, which seems to drive an insatiable need for improvement, (...) geared towards ever narrower definitions of what counts as education and what counts in education. The surprising result is that the modern school is increasingly seen as a problem, with high levels of dissatisfaction amongst teachers, students, politicians, the media and the public at large, who all want something better from the school, although they disagree about what this may look like. The question this raises is whether it is time to give up on the modern schools and its promise and hand it over to Pearson, Google and other educational capitalists, or whether we should try again and, if so, where we might go. The reflections I offer in this paper are primarily meant to think again about the relationship between the school and society, arguing for a more ‘obstinate’ school and a more ‘patient’ society. I argue that whether such a recalibration of the relationship between school and society is possible, is ultimately a test of the democratic quality of society itself. (shrink)

Many books have been published about physician-assisted death. This book offers a comprehensive and in-depth examination of that subject, but it also extends the discussion to a broader range of end-of-life decisions including suicide, palliative care and sedation until death. In every jurisdiction that has laws permitting some kind of physician-assisted death, a central point of controversy is whether such assistance should only be available to dying patients, or to everyone who wants to end his life. The (...) right to determine the manner and time of one's own death, however, does not necessarily mean that physicians should be permitted to cooperate in ensuring a quick and peaceful death. In this book, Govert den Hartogh considers the fundamental and practical matters-including concrete issues of legal regulation-related to end-of life decision making. He proposes a two-tiered system. Everyone should have access to humane means of ending his life, if his decision to end it is voluntary, well-considered and durable. But doctors should only participate in a joint action of ending the patient's life on his request if they also are convinced of acting in the patient's best interests, in particular by ending intolerable and unrelievable suffering. And perhaps there is reason to restrict that second service to dying patients. The whole argument, however, depends on the extent to which, in both tiers of the system, we can design legal safeguards that will enable us to trust judgments about the requesting person's request and about his suffering. The book considers much new evidence in regard to this issue. What Kind of Death will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in bioethics, applied ethics, philosophy of law and health law. (shrink)

Our concept of choice is integral to the way we understand others and ourselves, especially when considering ourselves as free and responsible agents. Despite the importance of this concept, there has been little empirical work on it. In this paper we report four experiments that provide evidence for two concepts of choice—namely, a concept of choice that is operative in the phrase having a choice and another that is operative in the phrase making a choice. The experiments indicate that the (...) two concepts of choice can be differentiated from each other on the basis of the kind of alternatives to which each is sensitive. The results indicate that the folk concept of choice is more nuanced than has been assumed. This new, empirically informed understanding of the folk concept of choice has important implications for debates concerning free will, responsibility, and other debates spanning psychology and philosophy. -/- Specifically, 'having a choice' appears to require genuinely open alternatives, or alternative possibilities that are actually realizable, while 'making a choice' appears to only require psychological open alternatives, or the ability to consider alternatives independent of whether these alternatives are actually realizable. We argue that these findings are relevant to the free will debate because choice is central to the folk concept of free will and many philosophical analysis of free will. The kinds of alternatives required for having a choice appear to be incompatibilist in nature, while the kinds of alternatives required for making a choice appear to be compatibilist in nature. If free will requires having choices, then this is perhaps evidence against compatibilism. If free will requires making choices, then this is perhaps evidence in favor of--or at least consistent with--compatibilism. (shrink)

How can liberal democracy best be realized in a world fraught with conflicting new forms of identity politics and intensifying conflicts over culture? This book brings unparalleled clarity to the contemporary debate over this question. Maintaining that cultures are themselves torn by conflicts about their own boundaries, Seyla Benhabib challenges the assumption shared by many theorists and activists that cultures are clearly defined wholes. She argues that much debate--including that of "strong" multiculturalism, which sees cultures as distinct pieces of (...) a mosaic--is dominated by this faulty belief, one with grave consequences for how we think injustices among groups should be redressed and human diversity achieved. Benhabib masterfully presents an alternative approach, developing an understanding of cultures as continually creating, re-creating, and renegotiating the imagined boundaries between "us" and "them." Drawing on contemporary cultural politics from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States, Benhabib develops a double-track model of deliberative democracy that permits maximum cultural contestation within the official public sphere as well as in and through social movements and the institutions of civil society. Agreeing with political liberals that constitutional and legal universalism should be preserved at the level of polity, she nonetheless contends that such a model is necessary to resolve multicultural conflicts. Analyzing in detail the transformation of citizenship practices in European Union countries, Benhabib concludes that flexible citizenship, certain kinds of legal pluralism and models of institutional powersharing are quite compatible with deliberative democracy, as long as they are in accord with egalitarian reciprocity, voluntary self-ascription, and freedom of exit and association. The Claims of Culture offers invaluable insight to all those, whether students or scholars, lawyers or policymakers, who strive to bridge the gap between the theory and practice of cultural politics in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Is this the right book for me? An accessible introduction to ethics Whether you're a student studying philosophy at any level, or simply want to gain a deeper understanding of this fascinating subject, Understand Ethics is an accessible introduction to all the key theories and thinkers. Fully updated, this latest edition includes contemporary examples and discussion of current debates including terrorism, genetics and the media, helping you to grasp how ethics applies to life today. Understand Ethics includes: Chapter 1: Introduction: (...) the art of living What makes something moral? What is the point of ethics? What price integrity? Rights and responsibilities The art of living Chapter 2: Free to choose? What kind of freedom? Determinism Reductionism Freedom and the State How much freedom does morality need? Chapter 3: What do we mean? Three kinds of language Defining key terms Some theories 'Is' and 'ought' Chapter 4: Is it natural? Does it have a 'final cause'? Some features of 'natural law' How do you decide what is 'natural'? Applying 'natural law' Are we naturally good or bad? Evolution, change and the natural law Chapter 5: Looking for results Egoistic hedonism Utilitarianism Forms of utilitarianism General criticisms of utilitarianism Chapter 6: The experience of moral choice Conscience The categorical imperative The creative response Determined and yet free?.. Chapter 7: Personal development and virtue Altruism? Nietzsche Virtue ethics Existentialism Humankind, Marx and Freud Chapter 8: Law and order Society and moral choice In whose interest? Is equality possible? A social contract Crime and punishment Capital punishment In self-defence? Civil disobedience If Nietzsche were a civil servant... Chapter 9: Religion and moral values How are religion and morality related? The basis for religious ethics Religious values and society Should religious freedom be restricted? Chapter 10: Scepticism and relativism Philosophers or politicians? Situation ethics Relativism and moral absolutes Chapter 11: Applied ethics The natural environment Animal rights International issues War and peace Gender issues Sexual issues Some issues in medical ethics The beginning and end of life Business ethics Media issues Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features: Not got much time? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience. Test yourself Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress. Extend your knowledge Extra online articles to give you a richer understanding of the subject. Five things to remember Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. Try this Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it. (shrink)

Thanks to mounting discussion about projected technologies’ possibly altering the species mentally and physically, philosophical investigation of what human beings are proceeds robustly. Many thinkers contend that whatever we are has little to do with how we should behave. Yet, tampering with what the human being is may tread upon human rights to be whatever one is. Rights given in widely recognized documents such as the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples assume what (...) humans are and need depends upon ontological assumptions about human existence. Godman turns to human ontology—just what kind of beings humans are (from an angle distinct from the other two books) and how these play into rights. She is concerned with how well the social sciences accord with what we are. Gunkel homes in on a more specific moral topic than Godman's general concern with identity’s role in rights: automata moral status and rights. He enjoins us to inquire into what human rights are before we take on the new technologies’ challenge to it. Schneider’s Artificial You, while not explicitly about rights, poses a rights quandary. Certain individuals with reputable resources and practical backing explicitly seek to evolve the species as they see fit. The urgency among these works concerns how we need a sharper idea of what we are, how we should act and be treated, and how our rights fare among potential human improvements. (shrink)

According to the trilemma claim, we cannot have all three of equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice. In response to the trilemma, John Rawls famously sacrificed equality by introducing incentives. In contrast, GA Cohen and others argued that we can, in fact, have all three provided that individuals are properly motivated by an egalitarian ethos. The incentives debate, then, concerns the plausibility of the ethos solution versus the plausibility of the incentives solution. Considerable ink has been spilled (...) on both sides of the debate. Yet, in this essay, I argue that we cannot have this debate until we clarify the terms. Once we clarify the terms, however, we might discover that there is no debate to be had. This is because, depending on how equality, Pareto, and freedom of occupational choice are interpreted, there might not be a trilemma in the first place. Specifically, I use a small but crucial distinction in how equality, the egalitarian ethos, and Pareto are assessed – what I call the internal/external distinction – to disentangle the various paths each solution – the ethos or incentives – could take. I conclude that both solutions have gained illicit plausibility by virtue of not keeping the distinction straight. (shrink)

Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the early and (...) middle period dialogues. Though this is a kind of strengthening the developmentalistic approach corresponding the relation of the early and middle period dialogues, based on the fact that what is to be proved here is a essential development in Plato’ ontology and his epistemology, by expanding the grounds of development to the ontological and epistemological principles, it hints to a more profound development. The fact that the bipolar and split knowledge and being of the early period dialogues give way to the tripartite and bound knowledge and benig of the middle period dialogues indicates the development of the notions of being and knowledge in Plato’s philosophy before the dialogues of the middle period. -/- Keywords Plato; early dialogues; middle dialogues; being; knowledge; development -/- Introduction The differences between two groups of the early and middle period dialogues have always been a matter of dispute. Whereas the developmentalists like Vlastos, Silverman (2002), Teloh (1981), Dancy (2004) and Rickless (2007) think that from the early to the middle dialogues Plato’s philosophy changes, at least in some essential points, the unitarists like Kahn, Cherniss and Shorey believe that there happens no development and the differences must be taken as natural, ignorable and even pedagogic. In his well-known article, Socrates contra Socrates in PLATO, Vlastos lists ten theses of difference between two groups of dialogues. The first group which includes Plato’s early dialogues he divides to 'elenctic' (Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and Republic I) and 'transitional' (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Menexenus and Meno) dialogues. These transitional come after all the elenctic dialogues and before all the dialogues of the second group which compose Plato’s middle period dialogues, including (with Vlastos' chronological order) Cratylus, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic II-X, Phaedrus, Parmenides and Theaetetus (1991, 46-49). Vlastos asserts strictly that his list of differences are 'so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention, beginning with Aristotole’s' (ibid, 46). Vlastos’ list of differences between two Socrateses is considered a view breaking sharply between the early and the middle dialogues. Besides all ten differences between the two Socrateses in Vlastos’ list that can be supportive for our doctrine here, we intend to focus on some ontological as well as epistemological distinctions that have not completely been discussed hitherto. Contrary to the developmentalist theory of Vlastos, unitarian theory of Charles Kahn wishes to eliminate any substantial difference between the early and the middle dialogues. He distinguishes seven 'pre-middle' or 'threshold' dialogues including Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Protagoras, Meno, Lysis and Euthydemus from the other Socratic dialogues which he calls 'earliest group' (1996, 41). The threshold dialogues, Kahn thinks, 'embarke upon a sustained project' that is to reach to its climax in the middle period dialogues, namely Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. Believing in that there is no 'fundamental shift'between the early and middle dialogues (ibid, 40), Kahn thinks the Socratic dialogues are just the 'first stage' with a 'deliberate silence' towards the theories of later periods (ibid, 339). One of the reasons of the surprising fact that Plato gives no hint of the metaphysics and epistemology of the Forms in the early dialogues, he thinks, is the pedagogical advantages of aporia. He thinks that Plato 'obscurely', and mostly because of education, hinted to some doctrines and conceptions in his early dialogues and with the aim of clarifying them only in the later ones (ibid, 66). The seven threshold dialogues, Kahn asserts, 'had been designed from the first' to prepare the pupils and readers for the views expounded in the middle period dialogues (ibid, 59-60). To show that the differences of the two Socrateses of the early and middle period dialogue are in their onto-epistemological grounds and thence cannot be explained by a unitaristic view, we try to draw the ontological and epistemological principles of the early dialogues in the first part below in order to show, in the second part, that those principles have been developed in the middle period dialogues. -/- A. The Onto-Epistemologic Principles of the Early Dialogues Socratic dialogues are paradoxical about knowledge because while being knowledge-oriented always searching for knowledge, they deny it and even never discuss it directly. Three elements of Socrates’ way of searching Knowledge throughout the early dialogues, i.e. Socratic 'what is X?' question, his disavowal of knowledge and his elenctic method combined together produce something like a circle which works, more or less, in the same way in these dialogues. Though this circle is an embaressing inquiry always resulting in ignorance instead of knowledge, its motivation is surprisingly Socrates’ passionate enthusiasm for knowledge, an intensive love of wisdom. The starting point of this circle is Socrates’ confession of having no knowledge which might be explicitly asserted or presupposed, maybe because it was one of the famous characteristics of Socrates; a confession always paradoxically accompanied with his intense longing for knowledge (e.g., Gorgias 505e4-5). Every time Socrates encounters with someone who thinks he knows something (οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι) (Apology 21d5) and tries to examine him. This examination seems to be the simplest one asking just what it is that he knows. Socrates’ elenchus, therefore, is always connected with 'what is X?' (τίς ποτέ ἐστιν) question, a question that most of the early dialogues of Plato are concerned with; 'what is courage?' in the Laches, 'what is piety?' in Euthydemus, 'what is temperance?' in Charmides and 'what is beauty?' in Hippias Major. This question we call here 'Socratic question' and probably is the very question the historical Socrates used to employ, is tightly interrelated with both his disavowal and his elenchus. He disclaims knowledge because he cannot find the answer to the question himself and he rejects others’ since they cannot offer the correct answer too. Every interlocutor can claim he knows X, if and only if he can answer the Socratic question. Otherwise, he is more of an ignorant than of a knower of τί ποτέ ἐστι X. Knowing the answer to this question is, thus, knowledge’s criterion for Socrates. Having found out that he cannot answer what it is which he would claim to know, the interlocutor comes to the point Socrates was there at the beginning. The least advantage of this circle is that he becomes as wise as Socrates does about the subject, becoming aware that he does not know it. At the end of the circle they are both still at the beginning, not knowing what X is. So let us first take a glance at these three elements. Socratic disavowal of knowledge is strictly asserted in some passages. At Apology 21b4-5, Socrates says: -/- I do not know of myself being wise at all (οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν σύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὤν) -/- Moreover, at 21d4-6: -/- None of us knows anything worthwhile (καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι) …. I do not know (οἶδα) neither do I think I know. -/- In Charmides Socrates speaks about a fear about his probable mistake of thinking that he knows (εἰδέναι) something when he does not (166d1-2). The somehow generalization of this disavowal can be seen in Gorgias. After calling his disavowal 'an account that is always the same' (509a4-5), Socrates continues (a5-7): -/- I say that I do not know (οἶδα) how these things are, but no one I have ever met, like now, who can say anything else without being absurd. -/- At the end of Hippias Major (304d7-8), Socrates affirms his disavowal of knowledge of 'what is X?' this time about the fine: -/- I do not know (οἶδα) what that is itself (αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν). Some other passages, however, made a number of scholars dubious about Socrates’ disavowal. Vlastos mentions Apology 29b6-7 as an evidence : 'that to do wrong and to disobey one’s master, both god and men, I know (οἶδα) to be evil and shameful'. He thinks that if we give this single text 'its full weight' it can suffice to show that Socrates does claim knowledge of a moral truth (1985, 7). Vlastos’ claim is not admittable since it would be too strange, I think, for a man like Socrates to violate his disavowal claim just after emphasizing it. We can see his claim just before the already mentioned passage: -/- And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything it world be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge (οὐκ εἰδὼς ἱκανῶς) of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have (οὐκ εἰδέναι) (Apology 29b1-6) Vlastos tries to solve what he calls the 'paradox' of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge distinguishing the 'certain' knowledge from 'elenctic' knowledge (1985, 11) and thinking that when Socrates avows knowledge, we must perceive it as an elenctic knowledge, a knowledge its content 'must be propositions he thinks elenctically justifiable' (ibid, 18). Irwin’s solution is the distinction of knowledge and belief. He approves that Socrates does not 'explicitly' make such a distinction, but still thinks that Socrates’ 'test for knowledge would make it reasonable for him to recognize true belief without knowledge, and his own claims are easily understood if they are claims to true belief alone' (1977, 40). While I agree with Vlastos up to a point, I strongly disagree with Irwin about the early dialogues. As I will try to show below, we are not permitted to consider any kind of distinction within knowledge in Socratic dialogues because only one category of knowledge is alluded to there and the distinction of knowledge and belief thoroughly belongs to the second Sorcates. Although no kind of distinction can be admittable here, I think Vlastos’ distinction can be accepted only if we regard it as a distinction between knowledge, which is unique and without any, even incomparable, rival, and a semi-idiomatic and ordinary one that is a necessary requirement for any argument, and thus, unavoidable even for someone who does not claim any kind of knowledge. An apparent evidence of this is Gorgias 505e6-506a4: -/- I go through the discussion as I think it is (ὡς ἄν μοι δοκῇ ἔχειν), if any of you do not agree with admissions I am making to myself, you must object and refute me. For I do not say what I say as I know (οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω ἃ λέγω) but as searching jointly with you (ζητῶ κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν). -/- The minimal degree of knowledge everyone must have to take part in an argument, conduct it and use the phrase "I know" when it is necessary is what Socrates cannot deny. We can call it elenctic knowledge only if we agree that it is not the kind of knowledge that Socrates has always been searching, the one that can be accepted as the answer of Socratic 'what is X?' question. His disavowal of knowledge is applied only to the knowledge which can truly be the answer of Socratic question and pass the elenctic exam; a knowledge that, I believe, is never claimed by first Socrates. Socrates conducts his method of examining his interlocutors’ knowledge, our second element here, by almost the same method repeated in Socratic dialogues. That whether we are allowed to regard all the examinations of Socrates in the early dialogues as based on the same or not has been a matter of dispute. Vlastos himself (1994, 31) distinguished Euthydemas, Lysis, Menexenns and Hippias Major from the other Socratic dialogues because he thinks Socrates has lost his faith to elenchus in there. Irwin (1977, 38) distinguishes Apology and Crito where Socrates’ own convictions is present. Contrary to some scholars like Benson (2002, 107) who take elenchus in all the Socratic dialogues as a unique method, Michelle Carpenter and Ronald M. Polansky (2002, 89-100) argue pro the variety of methods of elenchus. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (2002, 145-160) even reject such a thing as Socratic elenchus which can gather all of the Socrates’ various arguments under such a heading. There can be no solution for the problem of elenchus, they think, is due to 'the simple reason that there is no such thing as 'the Socratic elenchos"'(p.147). Though we consider elenchus a somehow determined process and a part of Socratic circle in the early dialogues, all we assume is that whatever differences it might have in different dialogues, it has the same onto-epistemological principles and, thus, we are not going to take it necessarily as a unique method. This method sets out to prove that the interlocutors are as ignorant as Socrates himself is. That whether elenchus is constructive, capable of establishing doctrines as Vlastos (1994) or Brickhouse and Smith (1994, 20-21) believe or not is another issue to which this paper is not to claim anything. What is crucial for our discussion here is that elenchus does not reach to the very knowledge Socrates is looking for. This is strictly against Irwin who thinks that not only elenchus leads to positive results, 'it should even yield knowledge to match Socrates’ conditions'(1977, 68, cf. 48). He does not explain where and how they really yield to that kind of knowledge. He explains his elenctic method in his apology in the court (Apology 21-22), that how he used to examine wise men, politicians, poets and all those who had the highest reputation for their knowledge and every time found that they have no knowledge. If we accept, as I strongly do, that Socrates’ disavowal of his knowledge is not irony, it might seem more reasonable to agree that the process that has that disavowal as its first step cannot be irony as well. The key of the circle which can explain why Socrates disclaims knowledge and how he can reject others’ claim of having any kind of knowledge lies in the third element, Socratic question. In Hippias Major (287c1-2), Socrates asks: 'Is it not by Justice that just people are Just? (ἆρ᾽ οὐ δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοί εἰσιν οἱ δίκαιοι). He insists at 294b1 that they were searching for that by which (ᾧ) all beautiful things are beautiful (cf. b4-5, 8). At Euthyphro 6d10-11 it is said that the Socratic question is waiting for 'the form itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος) by which (ᾧ) all the pious actions are pious; and at 6d11-e1: -/- Through one form (που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ) impious actions are impious and pious actions pious. -/- Since the X itself is that by which X is X, knowing 'X itself' is the only way of knowing X. It is probably because of this that Socrates makes the distinction between the ousia as a right answer to the question and effect as a wrong one: -/- I am afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is (τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἐστίν) you did not wish to make clear its nature itself (οὐσίαν … αὐτοῦ) to me, but you said some effect (πάθος) about it. (Euthp. 11a6-9) -/- 1. Knowledge of what X is Now it is time to look for the onto-epistemological principles of Socratic circle and its three elements. It cannot reasonably be expected from the first Socrates to present us explicitly and clearly formulated principles of his onto-epistemology when such explications cannot be found even in the second Socrates who has some obviously positive theoris. Since there must be some principles underlying this first systematic inqury of knowledge, we must seek to them and be satisfied with elicitation of the first Socratas’ principle. What will be drawn out as his principles cannot and must not, thus, be taken as very fix and dogmatic principles. Some very slightest principles and grounds suffice for our purposes here. The first principle that is the prima facie significance of the Socratic question and his implementation of all those elenctic arguments I call the principle of 'Knowledge of What X is' (KWX): -/- KWX To know X, it is required to know what X is. -/- Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b23-25, 27-29, 987b4-8) takes Plato’s τί ἐστι question as seeking the definition of a thing that is the same as historical Socrates’ search but applying to a different field. That Plato’s 'what is X?' question was a search for definition became the prevailed understanding of this question up to now. I am going neither to discuss the answer of Socratic question nor to challenge taking it as definition. What I am to insist is that knowledge is attached firmly to the answer of the question: Knowledge of X is not anything but the knowledge of what X is. It entails, certainly, the priority of this knowledge to any other kind of knowledge about X but it also has something more fundamental about the relation of knowledge and Socratic question. Socrates’ exclusive focus on the answer of his question can authorize the consideration of such an essential role for KWX in his epistemolgoy. The total rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are unable to answer the question can be regarded as a strong evidence for it. Socrates’ elenctic method and his rejection of others’ knowledge in the early dialogues, which all end aporetically with no one accepted as knower and nothing as knowledge, prevent us from finding any positive evidence for this. We have to be content, therefore, of negative evidences which, I think, can be found wherever Socrates rejects his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are not able to give an acceptable answer to his 'what is X?' question. 2. Bipolar Epistemology Socrates’ rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge has another epistemological principle as its basis. Let me call this principle Bipolar Epistemology' (BE): BE There is no third way besides knowledge and Ignorance. -/- BE says that about every object of knowledge there are only two subjective statuses: knowledge and Ignorance. Socrates’ disavowal, however, says nothing but that he is ignorant of knowledge of X because he does not know what X is. This means that BE is presupposed here. Socrates’ elenchus and his rejection of interlocutors’ having any kind of knowledge are the necessary results of the fact that he does not let any third way besides knowledge and ignorance. The first Socrates never let anyone partly know X or have a true opinion about it, as he would not let anyone know anything about X when he did not know what X is. -/- 3. Bipolar Ontology The principle of BE in first Socrates’ epistemology is parallel to another principle in his ontology. Plato’s bipolar distinction between being and not being is as strict and perfect as his distinction between knowledge and ignorance. This principle I shall call the principle of 'Bipolar Ontology' (BO): BO Being is and not being is not. BO is apparently the same with the well-known Parmenidean Principle of being and not being (cf. Diels-Kranz (DK) Fr. 2.2-5). Euthydemus’ statement against the possibility of false knowledge can be good evidence for this principle: -/- The things which are not surely do not exist (τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα … ἄλλο τι ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν). (Euthydemus 284b3-4) -/- He continues (b4-5): -/- There is nowhere for not being to be there (οὖν οὐδαμοῦ τά γε μὴ ὄντα ὄντα ἐστίν). -/- That BE does not let true opinion as a third option besides knowledge and ignorance seems to be related to BO’s rejecting a third option besides being and not being, which is itself the basis of the impossibility of false belief. Socrates’ elaborate discussion of the problem of false belief in Theatetus that leads to a more decisive discussion and finally to some solutions in Sophist can make our consideration of BO for the first group of dialogues authentive. -/- 4. &5. Split Knowledge and Split Being The fourth principle I shall call the principle of 'Split Knowledge' (SK): -/- SK Knowledge of X is separated from any other knowledge (of anything else) as if the whole knowledge is split to various parts. -/- This Principle is hinted and criticized as Socrates’ way of treating with knowledge in Hippias Major: -/- But Socrates, you do not contemplate the entireties of things, nor do people you have used to talk with (τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). (301b2-4) -/- Contrary to Rankin who regards the passage as 'antilogical, almost eristic in tone rather than presenting a serious philosophy of being' (1983, 54), I think it can be taken as serious. Hippias criticizes Sorcates that he does not contemplate (σκοπεῖς) the entireties of things (ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων), a critique which Socrates is not its only subject but all those whom Socrates accustomed to talk with (ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). This last phrase, I think, extends this critic beyond this dialogue to other Socratic dialogues. Hippias’ use of the perfect tense of the verb ἔθω (to be accustomed) is a good evidence of this extension. We can get, thus, these ἐκεῖνοι as Socrates’ interlocutors in his other dialogues that hints that this criticism has the epistemological groundings of the previous dialogues as its subject. What ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι points to is that Hippias does not have in mind Socrates’ way of treating things only in this dialogue, but he is also criticizing Socrates’ way throughout his dialogues. At 301b4-5, Socrates and his interlocutors’ way of beholding things is described as such: -/- You people knock (κρούετε) at the fine and each of the beings (ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων) by taking each being cut up in pieces (κατατέμνοντες) in words (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). This leads us to our next principle that is parallel to, and the ontological side of, SK, the principle of 'Split Being'(SB): -/- SB Everything (being) is separated from any other thing as if the whole being is split to many beings. -/- Socrates and his interlocutors and thus, as we saw, the Socratic dialogues are accused to regard everything as it is separated from all other things. This separation is en tois logois that, I think, can reasonably be taken as saying that Socratic dialogues (it refers of course to the dialogues before Hippias Major) cut up all things which have the same name/definition from all other things and try to understand them separately, without considering other things that are not in their logos. They, for example in Hippias Major, are cutting up to kalon and try to understand what it and all others inside this logos are by separating it from all other things. This is directed straightly against Socratic question and the way Socratic dialogues follow to find its answer, every time separating one logos. As Meyer (1995, 85) points out, every question 'presupposes that the X in question in a logos is something' and 'every answer to every question aims at unity' (84). The critique of Hippias Major is, therefore, at the same time a critique of SK and SB. It is also a critique of KWX because it is only based on KWX that Socratic dialogues could search for the answer of 'what is X' question supposing that knowing what X is is enough for the knowledge of X. SK and KWX are absolutely interdependent. What Socrates and all his previous interlocutors have neglected in Socratic dialogues, Hippias says, was 'continuous bodies of being' (διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας) (301b6). Either this theory actually belongs to the historical Hippias as it is being said or not, it is strictly criticizing SB. We have the same phrase with changing sūma to logos some lines later at 301e3-4: διανεκεῖ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας. Although this theory that can be observed as both an ontological and an epistemological theory is rejected by Socrates (301cff.), it is still against first Socrates’ onto-epistemological principles and might let us look at what is rejected as Socratic prineple. -/- 6. Knowledge is of Being The sixth principle that I think is presupposed by the first Socrates, is the 'Knowledge of Being' Principle (KB): -/- KB Knowledge is of Being. -/- This principle is obviously the source of the problem of false knowledge, a very important problem throughout Plato’s philosophy. We face this problem maybe for the first time in Euthydemus. In less than 20 Stephanus’ pages, 276-295, we are encountered with different interwoven problems about knowledge , all grounded in the problem of false opinion. Having challenged the obvious possibility of telling lies at 283e, at 284 Euthydemus discusses it saying that the man who speaks is speaking about 'one of those things that are (ἓν μὴν κἀκεῖνό γ᾽ ἐστὶν τῶν ὄντων)' (284a3) and thus speaks what is (λέγων τὸ ὄν) (a5). He must necessarily be saying truth when he is speaking what is because he who speaks what is (τὸ ὄν) and the things that are (τὰ ὄντα) speaks truth (τἀληθῆ λέγει) (a5-6). This is based on Parmenidean principle of the impossibility of being of not being which Euthydemus restates (284b3-4) and we mentioned discussing BO principle above. The things that are not are nowhere (οὐδαμοῦ) and there is no possibility for anyone to do (πράξειεν) anything with them because they must be made as being before anything else can be done, which is impossible (b5-7). The words, then, are of things that exist (εἰσὶν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι) (285e9) and as they are (ὡς ἔστιν) (e10). The result is that no one can speak of things as they are not. It is this impossibility of false speach that is extended to thinking (δοξάζειν) at 286d1 and leads to the impossibility of false opinion (ψευδής … δόξα) (286d4). The general conclusion is asserted at 287a extending this impossibility to actions and making any kind of mistake. Not only knowledge is of being but speech, thought and action are of being simply because of the fact that nothing can be of not being. -/- B. First Socrates’ Principles in the Middle Period Dialogues Out of what were presupposed or criticized mostly in five dialogues, Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Laches and Charmides, we tried to draw the first Socrates’ principles. Our inquiry here is directed to find out the fate of these principles in the three dialogues of the middle period, Meno, Phaedo and Republic. To do this, first we ought to check the situation of Socratic circle in these dialogues. The Socratic circle that was predominant in the early dialogues, does not look like a circle here anymore though they certainly have some features in common. Meno, Phaedo and Republic II-X are not committed to the principles of the circle and the whole circle in disrupted in them. The difference of the two Socrateses towards acquiring knowledge is obvious. The Socrates of Meno, Phaedo and Republic is evidently more self-confident that he can get to some truths during his arguments as he does. They are in their first appearance, as almost all other dialogues, committed to Socrates’ disavowal. All of them try to keep the shape of the Socratikoi Logoi genre, which is committed to the historical Socrates’ way of discussion; a dramatic personage who is to challenge his interlocutors, ask them and refuse the answers. Nevertheless, the fact is that what we have in common between two groups of dialogues is mostly a dramatic structure. Whereas the first group’s arguments are based on Socrates’ disavowal and lead to no positive results, the second group is decisively going to achieve some positive results. The aim of the first Socrates was to show others that they are ignorant of what they thought they knew. The new Socrates of Meno, on the opposite, makes so much efforts to show that the slave boy has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the things that he does not know (οἶδε) (85c6-7). Despite his lack of knowledge, he has true opinions nevertheless. The way from these true opinions to knowledge, as Socrates states, is not so long. These true opinions are now like a dream but 'can become knowledge of the same things not less accurate than anyone’s' (οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστήσεται περὶ τούτων) (c11-d1), if they be repeated by asking the same questions. The most outstanding text regarding Socrates’ disavowal is Meno 98b where he explicitly claims knowledge: -/- And indeed I also speak as (ὡς) one who does not know (εἰδὼς) but is guessing (εἰκάζων). However, [about the fact] that true opinion and knowledge are different, I do not altogether expect (δοκῶ) myself to be guessing (εἰκάζειν), but if I say about anything that I know (εἰδέναι) -which about few things I say- this is one of the things that I know (οἶδα). (98b1-5) This passage is very significant about Plato’s disavowal of knowledge. There can hardly be found, I think, anywhere else in Plato’s corpus where Socrates speaks about his knowledge of something as such. He says first that he speaks as someone who does not know. This ὡς οὐκ εἰδὼς λέγω comparing with what he used to say in the first group, οὐκ οἶδα, has this added ὡς. Socrates does not claim strongly anymore that he does not know anything but speaks only as someone who does not know. He needs this ὡς not only because he is going to accept that he does know some, though few, things immediately after this sentence, but also because he needs his previous disavowal to be loosened from Meno on. He does not merely say here that he knows something. It is then different from the examples mentioned before which could be taken as idiomatic or at least not emphatic. Socrates’ remarkable emphasis on distinguishing εἰδέναι from εἰκάζειν departs it from all other passages where he says only he knows something. Moreover, he claims definitely that he has knowledge about few (ὀλίγα) things. From the early to the middle dialogues, Socrates’ attitude to knowledge has totally renewed its face. He brings forth a new concept, true opinion, and he does not speak of knowledge as he used to before; the rough, perfect and unachievable knowledge of the first group has turned to something more smooth, realistic and achievable. Comparing with the early dialogues that did not set out from the first to reach positive results, the middle ones are extraordinarily and surprisingly positive and hence destroy the basis of the Socratic circle. The questions and answers are purposely directed to some specific new theories; most of them are not directly related to the topics or the main questions of the dialogues. They are suggested when Socrates draws the attention of the interlocutor away from the main question because of the necessity of another discussion. Even if the main question remains unanswered, we have still many positive theories, prominently of metaphysical type. These theories are so abundant and dominant in these dialogues, especially Phaedo and Republic, that one might think that they may appear to be arbitrarily sandwiched in there. This helps dialogues to keep their original Socratic structure while they are suggesting new theories. Hence, the Socratic question of 'what is X?', though is still used to launch the discussion, is loosened and is forgotten for most part of the dialogues. Meno that has first a differently formulated question, 'can virtue be taught?', leads finally to the Socratic question of 'What is virtue?'. Phaedo is dedicated to the demonstration of the immortality of soul and the life after death without having a central Socratic question. The case of Republic is more complicated. The first book, on the one hand, has all the criteria of a Socratic circle: its 'what is justice?' question, Socrates’ strong disavowal (e.g. 337d-e), his rejection of all answers and coming back to the first point without finding out any answer. This Book, considered alone, is a perfect Socratic dialogue, as many scholars regard it as early and separated from other books. The books II-X are, on the other hand, far from implementing a Socratic circle. They have still the 'what is justice?' question as their incentive leading question, but they are, in most of the positive doctrines and methods that encompass the main parts, ignoring the question. Even these books that, I believe, are the farthest discussions from the Socratic circle are so cautious not to break the Socratic structure of the dialogue as long as it is possible. What is changed is not the structure of the dialogue but the ontological and epistemological grounds based on which new theories are suggested. -/- 1. Knowledge of the Good We can clearly see in the second group of dialogues that the KWX principle loses the place it had before in our first group. It is not, of course, rejected, but still we cannot say that it has the same situation. KWX that was based on Socratic question, as we discussed before, was the leading principle of the first Socrates’ epistemology and of the highest position. Other epistemological principles, SK directly and BE indirectly, were relying on Socratic question and therefore on KWX. Such a position does not belong to KWX from Meno on. What makes it different in the second Socrates is another principle that is needed it not only as its complementary principle but also as what is more fundamental. Plato, then, does not reject KWX in this period, but, it seems, he transcends to another more basic principle; a principle we shall call the principle of 'Knowledge of the Good' (KG): -/- KG Knowledge of X requires knowledge of the Good. -/- Whereas all the dialogues of our first group are free from any discuscon about KG, it bears a very important role in the second group so as becomes the superior principle of knowledge in Republic. Trying to solve the problem of teachability of virtue, Socrates says that it can be teachable only if it is a kind of knowledge because nothing can be taught to human beings but knowledge (ἐπιστήμην) (Meno 87c2). The dilemma will be, then, whether virtue is knowledge or not (c11-12) and since virtue is good, we can change the question to: whether is there anything good separate from knowledge (εἰ μέν τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄλλο χωριζόμενον ἐπιστήμης) (d4-5). Therefore, the conclusion will be that if there is nothing good which knowledge does not encompass, virtue can be nothing but knowledge (d6-8). What let us discuss KG as an epistemological principle for the second Secrates is the relation he tries to establish between knowledge and the Good which, though is alongside with the mentioned thesis and the idea of virtue as knowledge, goes much deeper inside epistemology asking to regard the Good as the basis of knowledge. The effort of Phaedo cannot succeed in establishing the Good as the criterion of explanation and knowledge since, I think, it needs a far more complicated ontology of Republic where Socrates can finally announce KG. What is said in Republic is totally compatible with Phaedo 99d–e and the metaphor of watching an eclipse of the sun. In spite of the fact that we do not have adequate knowledge of the Idea of the Good, it is necessary for every kind of knowledge: 'If we do not know it, even if we know all other things, it is of no benefit to us without it' (505a6-7). The problem of our not having sufficient knowledge of the Idea of Good is tried to be solved by the same method of Phaedo 99d-e, that is to say, by looking at what is like instead of looking at thing itself (506d8-e4). It is this solution that leads to the comparison of the Good with sun in the allegory of Sun (508b12-13). What the Good is in the intelligible realm corresponds to what the sun is in the visible realm; as sun is not sight, but is its cause and is seen by it (b9-10), the Good is so regarding knowledge. It has, then, the same role for knowledge that the sun has for sight. Socrates draws our attention to the function of sun in our seeing. The eyes can see everything only in the light of the day being unable to see the same things in the gloom of night (508c4-6). Without the sun, our eyes are dimmed and blind as if they do not have clear vision any longer (c6-7). That the Good must have the same role about knowledge based on the analogy means that it must be considered as a required condition of any kind of knowledge: -/- The soul, then, thinks (νόει) in the same way: whenever it focuses on what is shined upon by truth and being, understands (ἐνόησέν), knows (ἔγνω) and apparently possesses understanding (νοῦν ἔχειν). (508d4-6) -/- Socrates does not use agathon in this paragraph and substitutes it with both aletheia and to on. He links them with the Idea of the Good when he is to assert the conclusion of the analogy: -/- That which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say, is the Idea of the Good: being the cause of knowledge and truth (αἰτίαν δ᾽ ἐπιστήμης οὖσαν καὶ ἀληθείας) so far as it is known (ὡς γιγνωσκομένης μὲν διανοοῦ). (508e1-4) Knowledge and truth are called goodlike (ἀγαθοειδῆ) since they are not the same as the Good but more honoured (508e6-509a5). KG, which had been implicitly contemplated and searched in Phaedo, is now explicitly being asserted in Republic. As what was quoted clearly proves, this principle is the very one which we can observe as the most fundamental principle of the second Socrates in Republic, corresponding to the role KWX had in the first Socrates. The Form of the Good in Republic, of which Santas speaks as 'the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and …' (1983, 256) much more can be said. Plato’s Cave allegory in Book VIII dedicates a similar role to the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is there as the last thing to be seen in the knowable realm, something so important that its seeing equals to understanding the fact that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful (517b). Producing both light and its source in visible realm, it controls and provides truth and understanding in the intelligible realm (517c). -/- 2. Tripartite Epistemology BE is thoroughy rejected in the second Socrates and substituted by its opposite, the principle of 'Tripartite Epistemolgy' (TE): -/- TE Opinion is an epistemological status between knowledge and ignorance. BE of the first Socrates was denying any third way besides knowledge and ignorance which was the foundation of Socratic circle without which Socrates could not reject his interlocutors’ possessing any kind of knowledge. We cannot say, however, that the first Socrates had a third epistemological status in mind but rejected it. Such a status was unacceptable for him so that one can say that he would reject any kind of such status if suggested. There were only two possibilities about knowledge: either one knows something or he does not know it. TE, thus, was not the first Socrates’ discovery and, I think it is not the second Socrates’discovery. All we can see in our second group of dialouges is that he uses this principle as an already demonstrated one. Having examined the slave boy in Meno for the prupose of showing the working of recollection, it truns out that he has some opinions in him while he still does not know. Without trying to prove it, Socrates takes this as the distinction between knowledge and opinion: -/- So, he who does not know (οὐκ εἰδότι) about what he does not know (περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ) has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the same things he did not know (περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε) (85c6-7). -/- The same distinction is set between ὀρθὴν δόξαν and ἐπιστήμην at 97b5-6 ff. (also cf. 97b1-2: ὀρθῶς μὲν δοξάζων … ἐπιστάμενος). He connects then their difference to the myth of Daedalus, the statue that would run away and escape. So are true opinions, not willing to remain long in mind and thus not worthy until one ties them down by αἰτίας λογισμῷ (98a3-4). Socrates says that this tying down is anamnesis. We face, in Phaedo, the same relation is settled between knowledge as the process of being tied down and getting the capability to give an account, on the one hand, and anamnesis, on the other hand. When a man knows, he must be able to give an account of what he knows (Phaedo 76b5-6) and since not all people are able to give such an account, those who recollect, recollect what once they learned (76c4). Although the distinction between knowledge and opinion is not explicitly used in Phaedo, referring to the parallel link between knowledge plus account and anamnesis in Phaedo and Meno, one can say that those who cannot recollect are not able to give account and, thus, are in a state of opinion. What is said at Phaedo 84a, though not yet a definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, makes a distinction between their objects so as we can agree that it is presupposed. The soul of the philosopher, Socrates says, follows reason, stays with it forever and contemplates the divine, which is not the object of opinoin (ἀδόξαστον) (84a8, cf. Meno 98b2-5). The distinction of knowledge and belief in Republic has a significant difference with what we discussed in Meno and Phaedo since the distinction of Meno was based on anamnesis and thus more an epistemological distinction. Even in Phaedo that we do not have any elaborate discussion about the distinction, the only hint to the matter at 76 is bound to the theory of anamnesis. In addition to the relation of the distinction with this theory, there is another evidence that does not permit us to consider the distinction as an ontological distinction. Let’s see Meno 85c6-7: -/- So, he who does not know about what he does not know has within himself true opinions about the same things he did not know (τῷ οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ ἔνεισιν ἀληθεῖς δόξαι περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε). (85c6-7) -/- This last sentence persists that the objects of knowledge and true opinion are the same. What Socrates is to say here is that whereas he does not know X he has true opinion about the same X. I think Socrates’ sentence that the slave boy οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ and his restatement of it by saying περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε is because he wants to emphasize that the slave boy who does not know, has true opinion about the same thing. Socrates could say this just with using τούτων and there would be no necessity to bring περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ for οὐκ εἰδότι if he did not want to emphasize. -/- 3. Tripartite Ontology The distinction between knowledge and true opinion in Republic, on other side, has nothing to do with recollection, but is based on an ontological principle, 'Tripartite Ontology' (TO): -/- TO There are things that both are and are not. -/- This principle I confine, among our three dialogues of the second group, to Republic not extended to Meno and Phaedo, is obviously the opposite of BO. Speaking about the lovers of sights and sounds in the fifth book, Socrates distinguishes them from philosophers because their thought is unable to understand the nature of beautiful itself besides beautiful things (476a6-8) and hence they can only have opinions. The philosopher who, on the contrary, believes in beautiful itself and can distinguish it from beautiful things (476c9-d3), has knowledge because he knows, contrasting others who have opinion because they only opine (d5-6). Since those whose knowledge were degraded as opinion will complain about Socrates’ such calling their thought, he provides them the following argument (476e7-477b1): -/- - Does the person who knows, knows (γιγνώσκει) something (τὶ) or nothing (οὐδέν)? - He knows something (τί). - Something that is (ὂν) or is not (οὐκ ὄν)? - Something that is (ὂν) for how could something that is not be known (πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείη)? - Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what completely is (παντελῶς ὂν) is completely knowable (παντελῶς γνωστόν) and what is in no way (μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῇ) is in every way unknowable (πάντῃ ἄγνωστον). - A most adequate one. - Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be (ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι), won’t it be intermediate (μεταξὺ) between what purely is (εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος) and what in no way is (μηδαμῇ ὄντος)? - Yes, it’s intermediate. - Then as knowledge (γνῶσις) is set over what is (τῷ ὄντι), while ignorance (ἀγνωσία) is of necessity set over what is not (μὴ ὄντι) mustn’t we find an intermediate between ignorance (ἀγνοίας) and knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) to be set over the intermediate, if there is such a thing? -/- From the third status of being we must reach to the third status of knowledge. The simple reading of this text can be an existential reading, taking the "is" of the mentioned sentences as existence. The problem is that when it is said that there is something that both is and is not reading "is" existentially, it sounds too bizarre to be acceptable. It cannot easily be understandable to have something as both existent and non-existent at the same time. This problem arose so many debates and led many scholars to reject the existential reading of "is" and suggest some other readings like predicative or veridical readings. I think though Plato’s complicated ontology of Republic cannot be correctly understood by a simple existential reading, this "is" cannot be free from existential sense of being and, thus, cannot be reduced to just a predicative or veridical sense of being. -/- 4. Bound Knowledges In addition to KG, the Good is also the basis of another principle in the second Socrates, namely the principle of 'Bound Knowledge' (BK): -/- BK Knowledge of everything is bound to the knowledge of the Good. -/- We distinguished BK from KG because we want to insist, in BK, on what had not been insisted upon in KG, that is, the binding role that the Good plays in the second Socrates, contrasting the absence of such a role in the first Socrates. Socrates remembers, in Phaedo, his wonderful keen on natural philosophers' wisdom when he was young. The origin of this enthusiasm was Socrates’ hope to know the cause of everything as they used to claim. When he was searching the matters of his interest on their basis, Socrates says, he became convinced he can get no acceptable answer from them and found himself blind even to the things he thought he knew before. One day he hears Anaxagoras’ theory that 'it is Mind that arranges and is the cause of everything (ὡς ἄρα νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος)' (Phd. 97c1-2 cf. DK, Fr.15.8-9, 11-12, 12-14) and thinks that he can finally find what he has always expected, i.e. something which can explain all things. What I intend to show here is that what makes Socrates hopeful is that Anaxagoras’ theory tries 1) to explain all things by one thing and 2) this explanation is understood by Socrates as if it is based on the concept of the Good. That Socrates was searching for one explanation for all things can be proved even from what he has been expecting from natural philosophers. The case is, nonetheless, more clearly asserted when he speaks about Anaxagoras’ theory. In addition to διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος of 97c2 mentioned above, we have τὸ τὸν νοῦν εἶναι πάντων αἴτιον (c3-4) and τόν γε νοῦν κοσμοῦντα πάντα κοσμεῖν (c4-5) all emphasizing on the cause of all things (πάντα) which can clearly prove that one of the reasons which caused Socrates to embrace it delightfully was its claim to provide the cause of all things by one thing. Another reason was that Anaxagoras’ Mind, at least in Socrates’ view, was attempting to explain everything by the concept of the Good. This connection between Mind and Good belongs more to the essential relation they have in Socrates’ thinking than Anaxagoras’ theory because there are almost nothing about such a relation in Anaxagoras. The reason for Socrates’ reading can be that Mind is substantially compatible with Socrates’ idea of the relation between good and knowledge. Both the thesis 'no one does wrong willingly' and the theory of virtue as knowledge we pointed to above are evidences of this essential relation. Nobody who knows that something is bad can choose or do it as bad. The reason, when it is reason, that means when it is as it should be, when it is wise or when it knows, works only based on good-choosing. In this context, when Socrates hears that Mind is considered as the cause of everything, it sounds to him like this: good should be regarded as the basis of the explanation of all things. We see him, thus, passing from the former to the latter without any proof. This is done in the second sentence after introducing Mind: -/- I thought that if this were so, the arranging Mind would arrange all things and put each thing in the way that was Best (ὅπῃ ἂν βέλτιστα ἔχῃ). If one then wished to find the cause of each thing by which it either perishes or exists, one needs to find what is the best way (βέλτιστον αὐτῷ ἐστιν) for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is the most excellent (ἄριστον) and best (βέλτιστον). The same man must inevitably also know what is worse (χεῖρον), for that is part of the same knowledge. (97c4-d5) This passage is a good evidence of Socrates’ leap from Anaxagoras’ Mind to his own concept of the Good that can explain why Socrates found Anaxagoras theory after his own heart (97d7). Mind is welcomed because of its capability for explanation on the basis of good to 'explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better (ἄμεινον), and that it was better (ἄμεινον) to be so' (97e1-3). What Socrates thought he had found in Anaxagoras can indicate what he had been expecting from natural scientists before. Socrates could not be satisfied with their explanations because they were unable to explain how it is the best for everything to be as it is. It can probably be said, then, that it was the lack of the unifying Good in their explanation that had disappointed him. We must insist that we are discussing what Socrates thought that Anaxagoras’ theory of Mind should have been, not about Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. Phaedo 97c-98b, is not about what Socrates found in Anaxagoras but what he thought he could find in it. On the contrary, it should also be noted that it was not this that was dashed at 98b, but Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. It was Anaxagoras’ fault not to find out how to use such an excellent thesis (98b8-c2, cf. 98e-99b). Socrates gives an example to show how not believing in 'good' as the basis of explanation makes people be wanderers between different unreal explanations of a thing. His words δέον συνδεῖν (binding that binds together) as a description for the Good we chose as the name of BK principle: They do not believe that the truly good and binding binds and holds them together (ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δέον συνδεῖν καὶ συνέχειν οὐδὲν οἴονται). (99c5-6) -/- Having in mind Plato’s well-known analogy of the sun and the Good at Republic 508-509, we can dare to say that his warning of the danger of seeing the truth directly like one watching an eclipse of the sun in Phaedo (99d-e) is more about the difficulty of so-called good-based explanation than its insufficiency, a difficulty which is precisely confirmed in Republic (504e-505a, 506d-e). Moreover, BK is asserted in a more explicit way in the Republic, where the Good is considered not only as a condition for the knowledge of X, as was noted above discussing KG, but also as what binds all the objects of knowledge and also the soul in its knowing them. At Republic VI, 508e1-3, when Socrates says that the Form of the Good 'gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower (τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παρέχον τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις καὶ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι τὴν δύναμιν ἀποδιδὸν)', he wants to set the Good at the highest point of his epistemological structure by which all the elements of this structure are bound. This binding aspect of the Good is by no means a simple binding of all knowledges or all the objects of knowledge, but the most complicated kind of binding as it is expected from the author of the Republic. The kind of unity the Good gives to the different knowledges of different things is comparable with the unity which each Form gives to its participants in Republic: as all the participants of a Form are united by referring to the ideas, all different kinds of knowledge are united by referring to the Good. If we observe Aristotle's assertion that for Plato and the believers of Forms, the causative relation of the One with the Forms is the same as that of the Forms with particulars (e.g. Metaphysics 988a10-11, 988b4), that is to say the One is the essence (e.g., ibid, 988a10-11: τοῦ τί ἐστὶν, 988b4-6: τὸ τί ἢν εἶναί) of the Forms besides his statement that for them One is the Good (e.g., ibid, 988b11-13) the relation between the Good and unity may become more understandable. Since the quiddity of the Good (τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἀγαθὸν) is more than discussion (506d8-e2), we cannot await Socrates to tell us how this binding role is played. All we can expect is to hear from him an analogy by which this unifying role is envisaged, the sun. The kind of unity that the Good gives to the knowledge and its objects in the intelligible realm is comparable to the unity that the sun gives to the sight and its objects in the visible realm (508b-c). The allegory of Line (Republic VI, 509d-511), like that of the Sun, tries to bind all various kinds of knowledges. The hierarchical model of the Line which encompasses all kinds of knowledge from imagination to understanding can clearly be considered as Plato’s effort to bind all kinds of knowledges by a certain unhypothetical principle. The method of hypothesis starts, in the first subsection of the intelligible realm, with a hypothesis that is not directed firstly to a principle but a conclusion (510b4-6). It proceeds, in the other subsection, to a 'principle which is not a hypothesis' (b7) and is called the 'unhypothetical principle of all things' (ἀνυποθέτου ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὴν) (511b6-7). This παντὸς must refer not only to the objects of the intelligible realm but to the sensible objects as well. Plato does posit, therefore, an epistemological principle for all things, a principle that all things are, epistemologically, bound and, thus, unified by. -/- 5. Bound Beings The ontological aspect of BK we shall call the principle of 'Bound Beings' (BB): -/- BB Being of all things are bound by the Good. -/- We saw in our principle of Split Being (SB) how the first Socrates was criticized because of his approach to split being and separate each thing from other things. The principle of Bound Beings intends to make the things more related, a duty which is done again by the Good. In the allegory of Sun, there are two paragraphs that evidently and deliberately extend the binding role of the Good to the ontological scene: -/- You will say that the sun not only makes the visible things have the ability of being seen but also coming to be, growth and nourishment. (509b2-4) -/- This clearly intends to remind the ontological role the sun plays in bringing to being all the sensible things in order to display how its counterpart has the same role in the intelligible realm (b6-10): -/- Not only the objects of knowledge (γιγνωσκομένοις) owe their being known (γιγνώσκεσθαι) to the Good, but also their existence (τὸ εἶναί) and their being (οὐσίαν) are due to it, though the Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power. That the Good is here represented as responsible for being of things in addition to their being known means, in my opinion, that Plato wants to posit BB in addition to BK. The allegory of Cave at the very beginning of the seventh Book (514aff.) can be taken as another evidence. The role of the Good, one might say, is confined to the intelligible realm because it is asserted that the role the Good plays in this realm is corresponding to that of the sun in the visible realm. The fact that Plato wants to observe the Good also as the ontological cause of the sensible things is obvious from his saying, in the allegory of Cave, that the Form of the Good 'produces light and its source (τὸν τούτου κύριον) [i.e. the sun] in the visible realm' (517c3). We can conclude, then, that the ontological function of the Good is not confined to the intelligible realm in which it is the lord and provides truth and understanding (c3-4) because it is also responsible to produce τὸν κύριον of light. 6. Proportionality of Being and Knowledge Insofaras BE and BO principles of the first Socrates gave way to TE and TO principles of the second Socrates, we cannot expect him to preserve KB in the same way as it was in the first Socrates. The new tripartite ontology and epistemology necessitates some modifications in KB which results in the principle of 'Proportionality of Being and Knowledge' (PBK): -/- PBK To every class of being there is a proportionate category of knowledge. -/- This principle, of course, does not entail the refutation of KB and thus is not kind of rejecting PBK but only a more complicated version of it. Based on PBK, we can still agree that knowledge is of being (KB) but the issue is that since none of the concepts of knowledge and being in the second Socrates are as simple as they were for the first Socrates, we need a more complicated principle for their relation here. Although from Meno 97a where the distinction of knowledge and true opinion is drawn out in the second group of the dialogues, we can expect a new relation, it is articulated in its most complete way in Republic and specifically in the allegory of Line. All the beings are divided there hierarchically to four classes, to each of them belongs a class of knowledge: imagination to images, belief to the sensible things (more correctly: the things of which they[in previous class] were images (ᾧ τοῦτο ἔοικεν)), thought to mathematical objects (?) and understanding to the Forms and the first principle. The degree of clarity that each of the classes of knowledge shares in (σαφηνείας ἡγησάμενος μετέχειν) is proportionate to the degree that its object shares in truth (ἀληθείας μετέχει). (511e2-4) -/- Conclusion From the six onto-epistemilogical principles of the first Socrates, four principles turn to their opposite in the middle period dialogues. While bipolar epistemology and ontology of the early dialogues give place to tripartite epistemology in the middle period dialogues and tripartite ontology in Republic, the split knowledge and being of the first Socrates are inclined to be substituted by bound knowledges and bound beings in the second Socrates and specifically in Republic. Not all our system of principles in this article is necessarily determinative. Either they are rightly formulated or not, our result would not be vulnerable if we accept that 1) making the distinction of knowledge and belief, 2) accepting the being of not being and 3) trying to bind both being and knowledge by the concept of the Good happens only in middle period dialogues, having been absent in the early ones. These are the favourite results all those somehow arbitrary and even oversimplified principles were to illustrate; that there is kind of a development in the epistemological as well as the ontological grounds of Plato’s philosophy. -/- Notes . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Environmental Midwifery and the Need for an Ethics of the Transition:A Quick Riff on the Future of Environmental EthicsStephen M. Gardiner (bio)It is worth remembering that in many ways environmental ethics is a very successful field. Over the course of only thirty or forty years, we have reached a point at which almost every significant philosophy program in the country offers a course in environmental ethics, there are (...) several established and well respected journals, and the subject is regarded as one of the core areas of "applied ethics." This is quite an achievement; and one that is easy to forget. (When I listen to the complaints of environmental colleagues in other disciplines, or of philosophers working in many areas of applied ethics, I am vividly reminded.)Still, there is a sense that the job is only half done. For one thing, although environmental ethics classes are ubiquitous, they are usually undergraduate survey courses taught by nonspecialists. For another, although good work appears in the specialist journals, it rarely makes it into the "mainstream" journals that most philosophers read. Finally, although environmental ethics counts as one of three or four core areas of applied ethics, environmental philosophers are rarely hired by (so-called) top departments (and if they are, it is often not because they are environmental philosophers, but because of the other things they do).Now, many questions arise about this situation. One of them, of course, is whether there is some kind of "glass ceiling" on environmental ethics, and if there is, what causes it? Another is whether the core problem [End Page 122] is that we're just not all that good at environmental ethics (yet)? These are reasonable worries (about which my own views would be rather sanguine). But I am more concerned about another issue, which one might call that of "interfacing".The claim that environmental ethics has some problems in interacting with philosophy more generally, with allied disciplines, and with the wider public has been widely discussed in recent years, especially in the emergence of what has come to be called "environmental pragmatism." There is something important about this debate, but my own sense is that it can become overblown. For example, when I teach my undergraduate survey course, mainly to nonphilosophers, they are, if anything, more excited about the Land Ethic, Biocentric Egalitarianism, and the worth of species than about climate change and sustainability. Still, there is something going on. However sympathetic they are to philosophy, I have the sense that my students (as well as my colleagues in other disciplines and the wider public) are dissatisfied. Having heard the critiques and the first set of grand visions, the new challenges and their problems, they want more. Irritatingly, they want to know what to do now—either how to turn grand visions into actions, or (more usually) how to successfully muddle through in the absence of a compelling grand vision. In short, they want an ethics for the transition.For what it is worth, my sense is that the main task of an ethics for the transition lies somewhere between grand theory and pragmatism. What people are hoping for is a way to transform serious environmental concern into social change. But they want this transformation to be responsive to, reflective of, and integrated with wider values. Sensing that modern life has significant vices, but also major virtues, they wish to see environmental ethics synthesize their concerns in new and creative ways. In short, like a Socratic midwife, they want environmental philosophy to help them to articulate the way forward.I'm sympathetic to the need for an ethics for the transition. I also think that taking on the task of articulating such an ethic may help the field to break through some of the institutional constraints now restricting it. But mainly it just seems to be a worthy topic in its own right. Environmental ethics should try to become an ethics for living now. In the nicest sense of the phrase, it should seek to "grow up."Stephen M. Gardiner Stephen M. Gardiner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and the Program on Values in Society at the... (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess the position the Dutch environmental- philosopher Martin Drenthen develops on the philosophical import of the “wilderness-concept,” especially with regards to the practical implications he draws from it for nature-preservation-practices.By situating Drenthen’s work in the context of the Dutch debate on which kind of nature should serve as the basis for Dutch preservationist policies, I typify Drenthen’s position as inhering in the tension between an “engaged” environmental philosophy that tries to give a substantive (...) account of nature and a “meta” position that tries to criticize all substantive positions taken up within the debate.I show how by interpreting nature as “non-appropriable alterity” Drenthen succeeds in holding on to that tension, and how this nature-concept translates to the debate on preservationist strategies. By doing so, I grant Drenthen that his nature-concept has considerable merit in critiquing certain self-defeating forms of preservationist strategies.Next, I argue that by interpreting nature as “non-appropriable alterity,” Drenthen’s analysis can however be read as a plea for getting rid of historically grown intuitions surrounding nature-preservation, but that without such intuitions we cannot have a meaningful debate on which nature-preservation-measures are preferable over others. I then establish that many of our intuitions are derived from what is commonly known as the “Arcadian” tradition and that, although this tradition does seem to put forward a highly “external” nature concept, it can be seen as a starting-point for a “conversation process” with nature itself.My concluding claim is that an Arcadian tradition made flexible through such a “conversation process” does give us criteria for evaluating conservation practices, without the latter being reduced to simply projecting cultural idiosyncrasies upon nature, while the ultimate consequence of the Drenthian position is a situation in which everything is of equal value, whereby we loose all bearing when evaluating which conservation-practices are valuable and which not. (shrink)

Many find that the objectionable nature of paternalism has something to do with belief. However, since it is commonly held that beliefs are directly governed by epistemic as opposed to moral norms, how could it be objectionable to hold paternalistic beliefs about others if they are supported by the evidence? Drawing on central elements of relational egalitarianism, this paper attempts to bridge this gap. In a first step, it argues that holding paternalistic beliefs about others implies a failure to (...) regard them as equals in terms of their moral agency. In a second step, it shows that the fact that we should regard others as equals in this sense raises the threshold for sufficiency of evidence for paternalistic beliefs to be epistemically justified. That is, moral reasons of relational equality encroach on the epistemic. However, these reasons are not decisive. In cases where others are about to jeopardize critical goods such as their lives, mobility or future autonomy, relational equality sometimes calls for paternalistic action and, by extension, the formation of beliefs that render such action rational. The upshot is that in order to meet demands of relational equality we have a pro tanto reason to not hold paternalistic beliefs about others. (shrink)

What is consciousness and why is it so philosophically and scientifically puzzling? For many years philosophers approached this question assuming a standard physicalist framework on which consciousness can be explained by contemporary physics, biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. This book is a debate between two philosophers who are united in their rejection of this kind of "standard" physicalism - but who differ sharply in what lesson to draw from this. Amy Kind defends dualism 2.0, a (...) thoroughly modern version of dualism (the theory that there are two fundamentally different kinds of things in the world: those that are physical and those that are mental) decoupled from any religious or non-scientific connotations. Daniel Stoljar defends non-standard physicalism, a kind of physicalism different from both the standard version and dualism 2.0. The book presents a cutting-edge assessment of the philosophy of consciousness and provides a glimpse at what the future study of this area might bring. (shrink)

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Volume 21, Issue 1, Page 55-74, February 2022. Many find that the objectionable nature of paternalism has something to do with belief. However, since it is commonly held that beliefs are directly governed by epistemic as opposed to moral norms, how could it be objectionable to hold paternalistic beliefs about others if they are supported by the evidence? Drawing on central elements of relational egalitarianism, this paper attempts to bridge this gap. In a first step, (...) it argues that holding paternalistic beliefs about others implies a failure to regard them as equals in terms of their moral agency. In a second step, it shows that the fact that we should regard others as equals in this sense raises the threshold for sufficiency of evidence for paternalistic beliefs to be epistemically justified. That is, moral reasons of relational equality encroach on the epistemic. However, these reasons are not decisive. In cases where others are about to jeopardize critical goods such as their lives, mobility or future autonomy, relational equality sometimes calls for paternalistic action and, by extension, the formation of beliefs that render such action rational. The upshot is that in order to meet demands of relational equality we have a pro tanto reason to not hold paternalistic beliefs about others. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 28.1 (2004) 220-223 [Access article in PDF] Doing Our Own Thing. The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like Care, by John McWhorter; xiv & 279 pp. New York: Gotham Books, 2003, $26.00. In 2002, the first anniversary of the September 11th attacks was marked in New York City by the reading of the Gettysburg Address. It was, as many commentators (...) noted, an odd choice of eulogy, comparing as it did the unwitting and innocent victims of a terrorist attack to the willing and active [End Page 220] participants in a bloody civil war. In Doing Our Own Thing, the Berkeley linguist John McWhorter asserts that this strange choice was the result of a decline in American public discourse. A "particular kind of artful English, formerly taken for granted as crucial to legitimate expression on the civic stage has" he argues, "virtually disappeared" (p. xiv). For McWhorter, this lack of contemporary public oratory is merely part of a broader linguistic decline that has affected all aspects of American life and culture.There has, he suggests, been a dumbing-down of the language. Whereas Americans once took care to craft their language, public and private, McWhorter argues, there is now a casualness to their speech and writing which affects all aspects of their existence. The nature of this decline is best captured by McWhorter's anecdote about his research into Gullah, an obscure Creole dialect. In response to his inquiries about local speech patterns, an elderly black woman in Greenwood, Mississippi responded: "Well, seems like most folks, they speak pretty good English, but some people, it seems like they just talk" (p. 2). Whereas Americans once spoke pretty good English, McWhorter believes, now, for the most part, they just talk. In Doing Our Own Thing, he seeks to identify not only evidence for his thesis, but also the causes and consequences of this decline.Evidence of linguistic decline is, McWhorter believes, to be found in our public discourse (as evidenced by the contemporary use of the Gettysburg Address), and in the rise of rap music and popular lyrics at the expense of poetry—he notes that as late as the 1960s, the poet Marianne Moore was a guest on The Tonight Show twice. Less intuitively perhaps, he identifies the same decline in the decreased popularity of piano bars, and the rising popularity of cell-phones. What all these examples of have in common, McWhorter suggests, is a turn towards an oral as opposed to a written culture. Speech has, he says, become something of a "dress-down affair" (p. 49), and this has infected both our written word and public oratory. The "modern American speech writer" he notes, "tends strongly to operate under a guiding imperative not to sound too high a note" (p. 47). McWhorter contrasts this with examples from the nineteenth-century—with letters from ordinary soldiers to their sweethearts, and with Edward Everett's two-hour plus address at Gettysburg—which show that "we live in an America with a distinctly different relationship to the English language than an America still within living memory" (p. 167).For McWhorter, the causes of this decline are clear. The 1960s counterculture, in its efforts to "Speak Truth to Power, abandoned the formal conventions of previous generations' speech, and adopted its own more casual approach to public discourse. Indeed, McWhorter feels confident enough to identify "a single year when America lost its love for its language": 1965 (p. 183). The consequences of this decline are, for McWhorter, similarly obvious. Among them, the shift to an oral culture is held to be responsible for: the election of George W. Bush—Al Gore's "studied articulateness is certainly one of the major [End Page 221] factors that blocked him from winning the presidency" (p. xxi); the decline of contemporary political debate—more formal written language is, says McWhorter, "a better vehicle for objective argument than speech" (p. 35); and the increasingly obtuse nature of academic language. Indeed, McWhorter asserts that Judith Butler... (shrink)

Noam Chomsky is widely known and deeply admired for being the founder of modern linguistics, one of the founders of the field of cognitive science, and perhaps the most avidly read political theorist and commentator of our time. In these lectures, he presents a lifetime of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas of research to which he has contributed for over half a century. In clear, precise, and non-technical language, Chomsky elaborates on fifty years of scientific development in (...) the study of language, sketching how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language bears to thought, and its eventual biological basis. He expounds and criticizes many alternative theories, such as those that emphasize the social, the communicative, and the referential aspects of language. Chomsky reviews how new discoveries about language overcome what seemed to be highly problematic assumptions in the past. He also investigates the apparent scope and limits of human cognitive capacities and what the human mind can seriously investigate, in the light of history of science and philosophical reflection and current understanding. Moving from language and mind to society and politics, he concludes with a searching exploration and philosophical defense of a position he describes as "libertarian socialism," tracing its links to anarchism and the ideas of John Dewey, and even briefly to the ideas of Marx and Mill, demonstrating its conceptual growth out of our historical past and urgent relation to matters of the present. (shrink)

In EN V.3, Aristotle offers an abstract definition of distributive justice that is agreed to by all, namely that it should be governed by geometrical proportionality: ‘equals should be treated equally, unequals should be treated in proportion to their inequalities’. At the same time, he acknowledges that we need a more substantive definition of the currency of equality, i.e. to tell us who are equal and who unequal at each distribution, since this would be the only (...) way to avoid each group of people to identify its own conception with the universal concept of justice. In Pol. III.12 (1282b18-23) Aristotle is arguing that it is the task of the political philosopher to define what kinds of equality or inequality are relevant in distribution of political power. In order to do so, Aristotle has to answer the question who is a citizen, that is, who should share in the constitution (Pol. III.1 1274b40-41). First he clears away the false conceptions and claims about citizenship and then he offers two criteria for political distribution—political capacity and contribution to the polis—which prima facie seem inconsistent. This paper explores the relation of the two criteria and the fundamental role of political capacity within the context of political distribution; I intend to argue that they are actually two stages in the process of political distribution, where political capacity is indexical prior to the contribution to the polis. It is also suggested that the Aristotelian model is egalitarian, in the sense that all politically capable individuals, regardless of the degree of political capacity they possess, are awarded citizenship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Voice of Thersites:Reflections on the Origins of the Idea of EqualitySiep StuurmanIn the first century bc the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus observed that there were kings before the discovery of writing.1 Diodorus was right: the shared reflection about the human condition made possible by writing emerged in societies where distinctions between ruler and ruled, man and woman, master and slave, lord and commoner, and finally native and foreigner (...) constituted the "deep normality" of social life. No wonder that so much of early social and political thought consists of justifications of inequality. Powerful discourses of inequality told everyone what their station in life was and instructed them to speak and behave accordingly.What is truly remarkable, viewed against this background, is the emergence of ideas of equality. Why and how did people arrive at the daring and implausible idea that men are equal? In the history of political thought this question is usually discussed in the context of the advent of democratic rule in the Greek polis, that is, in a situation in which the demos is already constituted as a political actor. To constitute itself politically, however, the people or its spokesmen must already command a language in which the claim of equality can be expressed. In this essay I seek to retrieve the origins of that language, the historical moment when equality became thinkable in a setting in which the politicized demos had not yet appeared on the horizon. I will examine the famous Thersites episode in Homer's Iliad to show how this could happen, but my argument goes beyond the case of Homer. In the conclusion of this essay I will outline a general framework for the analysis of the interplay between social experiences, available languages, and the origins of ideas of equality. [End Page 171]Equality was not an empirical idea.2 Quite the contrary, the numbing repetition of the daily routines of inequality would seem to make it almost unthinkable, in the same category as black suns and men walking upside down. In such circumstances where was there space for the very thought of equality? How could it even find a voice amidst the deafening roar of kings, priests, and aristocrats? That simple question is my starting point.I will approach this question by means of an equally simple conjecture. Ideas of equality emerge when men or women draw on the egalitarian potentialities of available shared languages, and they do so to make sense of and to change or sustain determinate social experiences. Notions of equality do not arise out of the blue. They usually take the form of a critique of prevailing ideas about the superiority of some people above others. In that sense every discourse of equality is grafted upon some previously articulated discourse of inequality. All discourses of equality are potentially egalitarian because "equality, as an idea, consists in the belief that things can be alike and when alike should receive similar treatment."3 When somebody asserts that "we" are in some relevant sense "like them," the very utterance of the claim implies a questioning of the given relationship between "us" and "them."Where to begin our investigation? I start from the assumption that civilizations are, among other things, defined by the texts on which they confer canonical status. That is not to say that such texts are unquestionable or that their message is unequivocal. Canonical texts are not simply commands or prescriptions, they rather provide the master narratives and exemplary stories later authors draw upon to formulate authoritative interpretations. The major canonical texts of civilizations can usefully be seen as the stepping stones leading to the main interpretative traditions. The Homeric epics, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Qur'an, and the Analects of Confucius are outstanding examples of such canonical texts. The first step in our investigation is therefore an examination of such texts, looking for critiques of inequality as well as implicit or explicit notions of equality.Homeric Equality?On the face of it Homer may seem an unlikely source for the emergence of any notion of equality. In his influential history of ethics, Alasdair MacIntyre asserts that the Homeric concepts of goodness... (shrink)

In recent years there has been much debate over whether recognition has displaced, or should displace, redistribution as the pre‐eminent concern of contemporary politics. That debate is not about whether we should continue to pursue an egalitarian ideal, since equality is as much a goal for the politics of recognition as it is for the politics of redistribution. In this essay, I address only issues of recognition and ask what kind of equal recognition we can (...) reasonably demand or pursue. I argue that we can expect to secure equal recognition of difference or particularity only if that recognition is mediated by more general forms of recognition. Certainly that approach is implied if we hold that difference should be recognised because that difference matters to the recognised rather than to the recogniser. Thus, I challenge the prevailing view that the politics of difference should replace the politics of universalism; rather, the politics of difference presupposes a form of universalism. I also use a distinction between status and merit recognition to indicate the difficulties that confront the goal of equal recognition if we insist that particularity or difference should be the object of unmediated recognition. I use cultural and religious identities as the main foci for my argument, but I also consider how far that argument translates to issues of sexuality and gender. (shrink)

How should we approach the daunting task of renewing the ideal of equality? In this book, Christine Sypnowich proposes a theory of equality centred on human flourishing or wellbeing. She argues that egalitarianism should be understood as seeking to make people more equal in the constituents of a good life. Inequality is a social ill because of the damage it does to human flourishing: unequal distribution of wealth can have the effect that some people are poorly (...) housed, badly nourished, ill-educated, unhappy or uncultured, among other things. When we seek to make people more equal our concern is not just resources or property, but how people fare under one distribution or another. Ultimately, the best answer to the question, equality of what?, is some conception of flourishing, since whatever policies or principles we adopt, it is flourishing that we hope will be more equal as a result of our endeavours. Sypnowich calls for both retrieval and innovation. What is to be retrieved is the ideal of equality itself, which is often assumed as a background condition of theories of justice, yet at the same time, dismissed as too homogenising, abstract and rigid a criterion for political argument. We must retrieve the ideal of equality as a central political principle. In doing so, she casts doubt on the value of focussing on cultural difference, and rejects the idea of neutrality that dominates contemporary political philosophy in favour of a view of the state as enabling the betterment of its citizens. ". (shrink)

One of the most basic questions an ontology can address is: How many things, or substances, are there? A monist will say, ‘just one’. But there are different stripes of monism, and where the borders between these different views lie rests on the question, ‘To what does this “oneness” apply?’ Some monists apply ‘oneness’ to existence. Others apply ‘oneness’ to types. Determining whether a philosopher is a monist and deciphering what this is supposed to mean is no (...) easy task, especially when it comes to those writing in the early modern period because many philosophers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries include God in their ontologies. InThe Principles,Anne Finch Conway offers an ontology that is often described as being both ‘vitalist’ and ‘monist’. I take this to mean that, for Conway, all that exists is in some way alive and that if asked ‘How many things, or substances, are there?’ Conway would say, ‘Just one’. But to what does this ‘oneness’ apply? And where does the point of disagreement between Conway and her interlocutors, Hobbes, Spinoza, More, and Descartes lie? In this paper, I argue that determining the answer to this first question turns out to be quite difficult. Nevertheless, we can still make sense of the second. (shrink)

According to the deliberative view of democracy, the legitimacy of democratic politics is closely tied to whether the use of political power is accompanied by a process of rational deliberation among the citizenry and their representatives. Critics have questioned whether this level of deliberative capacity is even possible among modern citizenries--due to limitations of time, energy, and differential backgrounds--which therefore calls into question the very possibility of this type of democracy. In my dissertation, I counter this line of criticism, arguing (...) that deliberative democrats and their critics have both idealized the wrong kind of citizen deliberation. Citizen deliberation should not be concerned with the indeterminate project of "translating" abstract democratic principles and values into everyday cases of political problem-solving. Instead, deliberation should take the form of analogy, just as we already find it in everyday politics and affairs. When ordinary citizens use analogies, they do not derive decisions from general principles or values, but they still reason nonetheless. Seen from this analogical perspective, deliberative democracy is already a practical reality to a large degree. When an election is on the horizon, a campaign season arises in which debates, forums, and "barstool" dialogues exponentially increase the amount of citizen deliberation. In these settings, citizens can readily be seen to be mapping analogous past candidates, elections, issues, and problems onto those currently on the ballot so as to reason about them. Consequently, analogical reasoning allows citizens to treat the majority rule mechanisms that proliferate in real politics as "deliberative outlets," which is to say, as catalysts of deliberation akin to the "creative outlets" that catalyze self-expression in the arts. While citizens may recognize majority rule mechanisms as catalysts of deliberation, many democratic theorists will hesitate to embrace this vision of the practical reality of deliberative politics. Isn't analogical reasoning too low in rigor to be placed at the heart of the deliberative ideal? I develop two arguments to explain the foundational role analogy plays in deliberation and to counter such critics. First, I draw on the explosion of research on analogical reasoning over the past two decades to show that it is far more rigorous and systematic than many suppose. Second, I argue that to the extent that citizen deliberation is concerned with rational planning, rather than just reasoning in general, analogical reasoning is logically superior. When we reason about what to do, we make plans that incorporate predictions about what is likely to ensue when a given course of action is selected. However, as soon as predictions enter into deliberation, its underlying logic changes as well. The reason for this change in logic is that as our probabilistic reasoning expands, the probability of its conclusions degenerates. Therefore, when assessing probabilities, we no longer should seek decisions derived from long, elegant chains of reasoning that connect our various options to generalities like values and principles. Instead, what we need is "short and sweet," or terse, humble lines of reasoning, which are more congruent with this form of deliberation. Thus, to the extent that democratic deliberation is involved in rational planning, it calls not for the elegant, deductive kind of reasoning idealized by proponents and critics of deliberative democracy alike. Instead, democratic deliberation calls for the "short and sweet," analogical kind of decision-making we associate with ordinary citizens already. After all, as research has shown, analogies are a much preferred and rigorous way by which even experts engage in probabilistic reasoning. By focusing on analogical reasoning, I therefore conclude that the practical reality of deliberative democracy should be recognized in ways that might ordinarily be dismissed. (shrink)

We live in a time of turbulent change when many of the frameworks that have characterized our societies over the last few centuries – such as the international order of sovereign nation-states – are being called into question. In this new volume of essays and interviews, Habermas focuses his attention on these processes of change and provides some of the resources needed to understand them. What kind of international order should we seek to create in (...) our contemporary global age? How should we understand the political project of Europe and how can the democratic deficit of the EU be overcome? How should we understand the relation between democracy as popular sovereignty, which has become the defining principle of political legitimacy in the modern world, and the idea of basic human rights embodied in the rule of law? Habermas brings his formidable powers of analysis and his distinctive theoretical perspective to bear on these and other key questions of the modern age. His analysis is shaped throughout by his commitment to informed public debate and his powerful advocacy of a postnational renewal of the project of constitutional democracy. _Time of Transitions_ will be essential reading for all students and scholars of sociology and politics, and it will be of interest to anyone concerned with the key social and political questions of our time. (shrink)

The renowned philosopher and political theorist presents a summation of his influential work in this series of Columbia University lectures. A pioneer in the fields of modern linguistics and cognitive science, Noam Chomsky is also one of the most avidly read political theorist of our time. In this series of lectures, Chomsky presents more than half a century of philosophical reflection on all three of these areas. In precise yet accessible language, Chomsky elaborates on the scientific study of language, sketching (...) how his own work has implications for the origins of language, the close relations that language bears to thought, its eventual biological basis. He expounds and criticizes many alternative theories, such as those that emphasize the social, the communicative, and the referential aspects of language. He also investigates the apparent scope and limits of human cognitive capacities. Moving from language and mind to society and politics, Chomsky concludes with a philosophical defense of a position he describes as "libertarian socialism," tracing its links to anarchism and the ideas of John Dewey, and even briefly to the ideas of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. Demonstrating its conceptual growth out of our historical past, he also shows its urgent relation to our present moment. (shrink)

We live in a time of turbulent change when many of the frameworks that have characterized our societies over the last few centuries – such as the international order of sovereign nation-states – are being called into question. In this new volume of essays and interviews, Habermas focuses his attention on these processes of change and provides some of the resources needed to understand them. What kind of international order should we seek to create in (...) our contemporary global age? How should we understand the political project of Europe and how can the democratic deficit of the EU be overcome? How should we understand the relation between democracy as popular sovereignty, which has become the defining principle of political legitimacy in the modern world, and the idea of basic human rights embodied in the rule of law? Habermas brings his formidable powers of analysis and his distinctive theoretical perspective to bear on these and other key questions of the modern age. His analysis is shaped throughout by his commitment to informed public debate and his powerful advocacy of a postnational renewal of the project of constitutional democracy. _Time of Transitions_ will be essential reading for all students and scholars of sociology and politics, and it will be of interest to anyone concerned with the key social and political questions of our time. (shrink)

Traditionally, imagination has been considered to be a primitive mental state type (or group of types), irreducible to other mental state types. In particular, it has been thought to be distinct from other mental states such as belief, perception, and memory, among others. Recently, however, the category of imagination has come under attack, with challenges emerging from a multitude of different directions. Some philosophers have argued that we should not recognize belief and imagination as distinct states but rather on (...) a continuum, whereas other philosophers have argued something similar with respect to belief and memory. And some philosophers have suggested that we can reduce imagination to other mental states, whether mental imagery, belief, supposition, or some combination. In this paper, I address some of these challenges in an attempt to show we need to maintain imagination as a distinct – and indeed, robust – category in our taxonomy of mind. (shrink)

It is usually claimed that in order to assess a thought experiment we should assess the nomological possibility, or realizability in principle, of its scenario. This is undoubtedly true for many TEs, such as Bohr’s reply to Einstein’s photon box. Nevertheless, in some cases, such as Maxwell’s demon, this requirement should be relaxed. Many accounts of TEs fail in this regard. In particular, experimental and some mental model accounts are too strict, since they always require realizability (...) in principle. This paper aims at analysing the notion of possibility at play in the scenarios of scientific TEs, and sheds some new light on their nature and function. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen was one of the most gifted, influential, and progressive voices in contemporary political philosophy. At the time of his death in 2009, he had plans to bring together a number of his most significant papers. This is the first of three volumes to realize those plans. Drawing on three decades of work, it contains previously uncollected articles that have shaped many of the central debates in political philosophy, as well as papers published here for the first (...) time. In these pieces, Cohen asks what egalitarians have most reason to equalize, he considers the relationship between freedom and property, and he reflects upon ideal theory and political practice. Included here are classic essays such as "Equality of What?" and "Capitalism, Freedom, and the Proletariat," along with more recent contributions such as "Fairness and Legitimacy in Justice," "Freedom and Money," and the previously unpublished "How to Do Political Philosophy." On ample display throughout are the clarity, rigor, conviction, and wit for which Cohen was renowned. Together, these essays demonstrate how his work provides a powerful account of liberty and equality to the left of Ronald Dworkin, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and Isaiah Berlin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Against Method in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology by Josh ReevesWhitney A. BaumanAgainst Method in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology. Josh Reeves. London, UK: Routledge, 2019. 154 pp. $170.00 hard-cover; $54.95 paperback; $39.71 eBook.Josh Reeves has written a very accessible and well-argued book for those interested in the field known as “science and religion.” It is a timely book that (...) I would use in conversation with other works that are questioning the continued validity and usefulness of modern Western university disciplines. In a world that is marked by globalization and climate change, and one in which many histories, religions, cultures, and possible futures come into contact with and change one another, perhaps we need to rethink what we mean by both “science” and “religion.”The general argument of the book is that Western scholars of science and religion have, until very recently paid more attention to the philosophy of science rather than the history of science. As such, these scholars have participated in a form of “methodological fetishism” (9) and have leaned too heavily on the idea that the sciences participate in some sort of unified program. In particular, Reeves deals with three figures within theology and science (I think it is important to distinguish theology from religion more clearly than the author does), whose research programs seek to place the claims of theology on some type of equal footing with the claims of science.Nancey Murphy, for instance, applies Imre Lakatos’s idea of core and auxiliary hypotheses to theology (40). Murphy’s project is trying to show how theology can be scientific by using this methodology (49). Though recognizing that knowledge in both theology and science change over time, it is most often auxiliary hypotheses rather than the core hypotheses that need to be altered. In this way, scientific and theological programs can remain in continuity over time, rather than experiencing disjointed paradigm shifts.Alister McGrath opts, instead, for a type of “critical realism” (56). There is a real world pushing back against human ideas and concepts and science can give us valid information about that world, but we must critically analyze the data since no data is raw (59). Against some post-modern claims, McGrath still argues that ontology determines epistemology (61). Reeves argues that McGrath fails to analyze older, discarded theories in his reading of the development of various scientific discoveries, thereby paving over the historical knowledge from the sciences that we would now see as outdated. This serves [End Page 96] to support an illusion that there is some sort of “global realism” that connects all sciences in a common ground and narrative (68).Finally, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen starts from the idea that there is no global common ground and sets out to offer a post-foundational theology based upon post-foundational philosophies of science and epistemology (78). For van Huyssteen, rationality is intersubjective, embodied and emerges from eco-social contexts, and thus, he highlights the serious problem of projecting a unified, global rationality as a unified basis for the sciences (82). Instead, he constructs a trans-local rationality that takes into account the multiple perspectives making up what we think of as a unified understanding of reason (84). Reeves argues that while this may be a step along the way to a method for “theology and science,” it does not offer us a way to navigate differences between conflicting knowledge claims (93). I would suggest that this is precisely the point of a post-foundational project: there is no overarching value but rather common grounds must be gained through dialogues, conversations, and translations.After engaging with these three philosophical theologians, Reeves proceeds to the second part of the book, in which he more directly criticizes distinct concepts of “religion” and “science” historically. For instance, he describes the tendency of early historians of science and those in the field of “science and religion” to erase the religiosity of early figures such as Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon (107). These figures mixed theological ideas with what we might call magical ideas in order to further develop natural... (shrink)

: The concept of Self-Control carried by contemporary criminology has been put forward in order to catch up with increasing crime rates in society, to prevent crime, and to function in anger control. Works done in this area also include measures that must be taken early in the course of a kind of education to prevent crime in general. we see that in some countries Social and Emotional Learning programs are used in areas such as character education, prevention of (...) violence, anti-drug measures and school discipline. In the Islamic world, the self-control from the earliest times has been dealt with and dealt with as a religious matter. Many of the verses of God and the words of the Prophet are directed at controlling one's self, controlling one's emotions and anger. It has been reported to believers that a way of earning God's love and compassion is self-control. Despite being encouraged by various Islamic sciences, one of the main themes of Islamic mysticism is self-control. Therefore, Islam is one of the main subjects of self-control in education understanding. Summary: In the early 1990s, Michael R. Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi's "General Theory of Crime" made considerable progress in the theory of control theory and demonstrated remarkable results based on experiments. Along with these, we see that in some countries Social and Emotional Learning programs are used in areas such as character education, prevention of violence, anti-drug measures and school discipline. In 2002 UNESCO undertook the introduction of this program in order to serve the above purposes and sent letters to the education ministries of approximately 140 countries. Today, there are studies aiming to educate the sensation itself instead of using emotion to train. Self-regulation refers to being able to control our emotions and manage them. Some emotions develop over time during the child's brain and biological development and reach maturity level when the development of the nervous system is complete. Pratt and some other researchers found that communalization with parents and neighbourhood conditions predicted the diversity of self-control. They argue that community-level control and socialization are equally important factors contributing to the development of self-control. It has been seen as a virtue for the liberation of man's self and his desires. This virtue was met with the term Sophrosyne in ancient Greek, which means that "one lives his life diligently and intelligently; harmonious balance and wisdom." The Romans and the old Christian church have called it Temperantia, restricting emotional excesses. The subject of self-control and balancing of emotions is also studied in Islamic religion under the name of "Nafs Struggle". In fact, beliefs are emotional patterns. In order for human beings to be able to place their thoughts and beliefs in their native place, they have to be transformed into emotional patterns. For example, "goodness is good to do" expresses a thought. To add the emotional dimension to it, it must be reinforced by confirming that it is nice to do good to people. Emotions that begin to direct man's behaviours certainly shape him according to a reference value. These reference values or, in other words, standard values are determined and imposed by religions or are derived from the moral code of the community. Some scholars have also defined religion as a moral field that regulates psychological and behavioural tendencies by rewarding grieving actions and punishing those who are contrary to common good. Therefore, religion also includes moral concepts; it also affects supernatural thoughts. It is thought that religion, in turn, arouses beliefs and attitudes that prevent personal violence, impiety and dishonesty. In fact, what we call conscience is that the external control power becomes an internal control mechanism. To put it more precisely, it means internalizing these values of powers that represent authority that imposes external controlling thoughts and emotions. Therefore, our conscience in the social and physical environment constitutes the conscience of the things we have developed and the accusations that we have developed. The development of conscience in a person is also linked to the development of education and responsibility he has received. The main goal of religious education is to place the belief in God and to adopt and sustain a whole of values based on God's existence. For a person to know and feel the presence of a person who always sees and controls him will always lead him to a more controlled and supervised life. He who believes that God sees and hears people and that he will be punished or rewarded according to his bad and good behaviours, of course, seeks to control himself. Because in the method of reward and punishment, the aim is to create a mental condition for him by encouraging and loving something. Also, as a result of this operation, the brain learns to set limits on behaviour. This is conscious behaviour. Since consciousness is the information we have about ourselves, we are consciously observing and studying ourselves. The thing that distinguishes human beings from other beings is that they are aware of what they are aware of and that they realize it. If we did not have such a property, it would not be moral and we could not control ourselves. We can only find ourselves in ourselves and without any intermediary. These tools are not only scientific instruments, but also five senses, imaginations and thoughts, which are tools of the mind. Besides, when we add the ability of a person to evaluate and observe himself as an external object, wisdom can be understood when God suggests that we should think about our own nafs. The conscious person who thinks about himself is the one who takes charge of himself and accounts for his soul. To address this, the Messenger of God said: "The wise man,, draws his soul into account and works for the post-mortem; and if he is weak, he will obey God's will and ask for God." The Messenger recommends that a person be curled into himself and think and perceive about the soul, with the following words: "Do not go round with your heart, multiply your condolences and cry." Of course, many arguments have been put in place to ensure that self-control of the person in religious life is ensured. One of these is a feeling. Because the sense of shame requires to be embarrassed by other people, and to behave oneself. The Messenger, when he saw someone among ansar counselling to his brother about the modesty, said, "Certainly, it is by faith." Because the feeling of embarrassment is fed by the fear that the deprivation of social good will live on man. In personal relationships, a person is bound to put a limit on his behaviour in order not to offend others. The sensation of emotion is a feeling of emotion recorded in the frontal area of the brain, covering the social skills. The opposite of shame is insensitivity, impudence and irresponsibility. (shrink)

How do we know if people are equal? Contemporary philosophers consider a number of issues when determining if the goals of egalitarian distributive justice have been achieved: defining the metric of equality; determining whether the goal is equality, or simply priority or sufficiency; establishing whether there should be conditions, e.g. bad brute luck, for the amelioration of inequality. In all this, most egalitarians contend that what is to be equalized is not people’s actual shares of (...) the good in question, but rather, the opportunities to have such shares. I counter this view with an ‘egalitarian flourishing’ approach that, in seeking to make people equal in actual well-being, takes exception to the role of opportunity in contemporary argument. The flourishing view means a focus on outcomes, on how people live, in order to enable people to live equally flourishing lives. I argue that if we consider the complex dynamics of choice and circumstance, the role of nonmaterial considerations and the ideal of an egalitarian community, equality of opportunity proves to be an inadequate approach to the realization of the egalitarian ideal. (shrink)

A theory of what we should believe should include a theory of what we should believe when we are uncertain about what we should believe and/or uncertain about the factors that determine what we should believe. In this paper, I present a novel theory of what we should believe that gives normative externalists a way of responding to a suite of objections having to do with various kinds of error, (...) ignorance, and uncertainty. This theory is inspired by recent work in ethical theory in which non-consequentialists 'consequentialize' their theories and then use the tools of decision-theory to give us an account of what we ought (in some sense) to do when we're uncertain about what we ought (in some primary sense) to do. On my proposal, because what we ought to do is acquire knowledge and avoid ignorance, we ought to believe iff the probability of coming to know is sufficiently high. This view has a number of important virtues. Among them, it gives us a unified story about how defeaters defeat (a theory developed with Julien Dutant), explains puzzling intuitions about the differences between lottery cases, preface cases, and cases of perceptual knowledge, and provides externalists (and internalists!) with a general framework for thinking about subjective normativity. It's also relatively brief. (shrink)

De Jaegher’s (2009) paper argues that Gallagher, who aims to replace traditional theory-of-mind accounts of social understanding with accounts based on direct perception (hereafter DP), has missed an important opportunity. Despite a desire to break faith with tradition, there is a danger that proponents of DP accounts will remain (at least tacitly) committed to an unchallenged, and perhaps unnoticed, sort of individualism inherent in traditional theories (i.e. those that regard our engagement with others as a ‘problem’ to be solved: a (...) problem of other minds). Taking a more root and branch approach, De Jaegher recommends a complete shift of focus. She proposes that a more thoroughgoing and fruitful response to traditional approaches must attend to, and seek to understand, interactional phenomena proper—for it is the nature of interactions themselves that importantly influence individuals. Hence, it is the processes of interacting which ‘span individuals’ and their specific, dynamic evolution over time that should take pride of place in research into social cognition. De Jaegher wants to put interactional processes – those that can ‘take on life of their own’ and ‘influence interactors’ – at the heart of enquiries into intersubjectivity. Citing other recent work she has done with Di Paolo, she bills this as ‘‘the central task of any account of intersubjectivity” (De Jaegher, 2009, p. 2; De Jaegher & Di Paolo, 2007). The trouble is that this way of putting matters can make it look as if there is just one task facing researchers in this area; that we are faced with an either/or choice. But it is clear that any fully illuminated understanding of interactional phenomena will require accounts of what individuals and their sub-personal processes/mechanisms are doing in this larger process and, presumably, how their mechanisms/tendencies of response constrain and shape local bouts of interacting, even if we assume it is the dynamics of such encounters that importantly influence and shape what comes next.. (shrink)

Much of the recent philosophical discussion about free will has been focused on whether compatibilists can adequately defend how a determined agent could exercise the type of free will that would enable the agent to be morally responsible in what has been called the basic desert sense :5–24, 1994; Fischer in Four views on free will, Wiley, Hoboken, 2007; Vargas in Four views on free will, Wiley, Hoboken, 2007; Vargas in Philos Stud, 144:45–62, 2009). While we agree with Derk (...) Pereboom and others that the compatibilist’s burden should be properly understood as providing a compelling account of how a determined agent could be morally responsible in the basic desert sense, the exact nature of this burden has been rendered somewhat unclear by the fact that there has been no definitive account given as to what the basic desert sense of moral responsibility amounts to. In Sect. 1 we set out to clarify the compatibilist’s burden by presenting our account of basic desert moral responsibility—which we call retributivist desert moral responsibility for purposes of clarity—and explain why it is of central philosophical and practical importance to the free will debate. In Sect. 2 we employ a thought experiment to illustrate the kind of difficulty that compatibilists of any stripe are likely to encounter in attempting to explain how determined agents can exercise the kind of free will needed for retributivist desert moral responsibility. (shrink)

The question of personal identity—what makes a person the same person over time—is puzzling. Through the course of a life, someone might undergo a dramatic alteration in personality, radically change her values, lose almost all of her memories, and undergo significant changes in her physical appearance. Given all of these potential changes, why should we be inclined to regard her as the same person? Battlestar Galactica presents us with an even bigger puzzle: What makes a Cylon the (...) same Cylon over time? There are only twelve different models, but there are many copies of each. So what makes the resurrected Caprica Six the same Cylon as the one who seduced Gaius Baltar into betraying humanity, and yet a different Cylon from the tortured Gina or Shelly Godfrey? (shrink)

In this paper I would like to suggest that we should distinguish between three levels of education in schools: basic education for all, the cultivation of individual talents and capacities; and the selection for higher education and the job market. On each level egalitarians should in my view demand a different kind of equality and a different kind of metric. Since for the selection for higher education and the job market equality of opportunity (...) seems the approriate metric of justice in education, I turn to an analysis of four different conceptions of equality of opportunity. (shrink)