In this paper, I argue that Aristotle's basic principle, that all friends love only because of the lovable, is egoistic. First, I argue that 'the lovable' (τὸ φιλητὸν) refers to that which appears to contribute to one's own happiness. Second, I argue that the lovable is the final cause of love. This means that in loving only because of the lovable, all friends love only for the sake of what appears to contribute to their own happiness. Further, Aristotelian love for (...) others not only requires that these others appear to contribute to one's own happiness but also prioritizes one's own happiness; Aristotelian love is therefore in some sense egoistic. (shrink)

I raise the following six moral objections to the way God evaluates us. (i) He violates the human right to free thought. (ii) He makes the dubious assumption that it is praiseworthy and blameworthy, respectively, to believe and disbelieve that he exists. (iii) He excessively rewards believers and excessively punishes disbelievers. (iv) He only assigns to his evaluates the two extreme grades: eternal bliss and eternal damnation. (v) He overlooks diverse factors related to the belief of God. (vi) He is (...) silent on the issue of whether to evaluate animals. Therefore, God, who is allegedly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, does not exist. (shrink)

First, this research paper aims to provide a clearer definition of social entrepreneurship, identifying boundaries and providing examples of social entrepreneurship. Second, this research paper examines more fully the rationale for the emergence of new global social ventures, particularly in terms of the forces shaping the globalization of social entrepreneurship. Finally, this research paper aims to introduce a new social entrepreneurship model for global sustainable development, analyzing the relationship between social entrepreneurship and global sustainable development. This new social entrepreneurship model (...) is presented through the introduction of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC). (shrink)

Bird argues that scientific progress consists in increasing knowledge. Dellsén objects that increasing knowledge is neither necessary nor sufficient for scientific progress, and argues that scientific progress rather consists in increasing understanding. Dellsén also contends that unlike Bird’s view, his view can account for the scientific practices of using idealizations and of choosing simple theories over complex ones. I argue that Dellsén’s criticisms against Bird’s view fail, and that increasing understanding cannot account for scientific progress, if acceptance, as opposed to (...) belief, is required for scientific understanding. (shrink)

Many realists argue that present scientific theories will not follow the fate of past scientific theories because the former are more successful than the latter. Critics object that realists need to show that present theories have reached the level of success that warrants their truth. I reply that the special theory of relativity has been repeatedly reinforced by unconceived scientific methods, so it will be reinforced by infinitely many unconceived scientific methods. This argument for the special theory of relativity overcomes (...) the critics’ objection, and has advantages over the no-miracle argument and the selective induction for it. (shrink)

This chapter explains the screening‐off rule in the psychological laboratory. The Markov assumption states that any variable in a set is independent in probability of all its ancestors in the set conditional on its own parents. The screening‐off rule is also critical to allow Bayes nets to make an inference of the state of an unknown variable in a causal structure from the states of other variables in that structure. The chapter examines which causal representations people use to make predictions (...) and whether people conform to the screening‐off rule with respect to a causal model they have in mind. It analyzes what leads them to modify their causal model and whether or not people are causally oriented when making predictions. Making probability judgments is hard and requires careful deliberation. People are capable of such deliberation although they avoid it until they cannot, until the facts require more careful thought. (shrink)

Scientific realists argue that present theories are more successful than past theories, so present theories will not be superseded by alternatives, even though past theories were superseded by alternatives. Alai (2016) objects that although present theories are more successful than past theories, they will be replaced by future theories, just as past theories were replaced by present theories. He contends, however, that past theories were partly true, and that present theories are largely true. I argue that Alai’s discrimination between past (...) and present theories is subject to his own criticism against realists’ discriminations between past and present theories, and also subject to other criticisms that philosophers have raised against scientific realism and pessimism. (shrink)

In the Nicomachean Ethics, one of Aristotle’s most frequent characterizations of the virtuous agent is that she acts for the sake of the fine (to kalon). In IX.8, this pursuit of the fine receives a more specific description; virtuous agents maximally assign the fine to themselves. In this paper, I answer the question of how we are to understand the fine as individually and maximally acquirable. I analyze Nicomachean Ethics IX.7, where Aristotle highlights virtuous activity (energeia) as central to the (...) fine, and argue that when virtuous agents pursue the fine, what they are pursuing is virtuous activity. I then address various problems, like how virtuous people can maximize virtuous activity yet sacrifice their lives, which would seem to amount to sacrificing future opportunities to virtuous activity and therefore not maximizing it. I also eliminate alternative interpretations that do not take virtuous activity as necessary to the fine, for example the common good interpretation, whereby virtuous agents pursuing the fine amounts to their pursuing the common good. (shrink)

Fraser highlights an unattractive feature of Mohist ethics: the Mohists, while criticizing their Confucian contemporaries, restrict one’s pursuits to the most basic sorts of goods. Fraser suggests that the Mohists assume the perpetuity of scarce resources, which leads to a commitment to austerity, which in turn leads them to deny a plausible third way between austerity and excess. In their defence, I argue that the Mohists do not assume perpetuity of scarce resources but rather the hedonic treadmill. And instead of (...) begging the question by assuming austerity and then denying a moderate alternative to excess, the Mohists take the hedonic treadmill to preclude a principled stopgap between austerity and excess, leaving austerity as the only acceptable option. Finally, these dynamics illuminate a feature that should make us wary of parallels to Millian utilitarianism: the maximization principle of the latter is absent from Mohism, and this goes hand-in-hand with austerity. (shrink)

Change in scientific practice and its implications for the status of scientific claims, examined through an analysis of three episodes at a synchrotron laboratory. After World War II, particle physics became a dominant research discipline in American academia. At many universities, alumni of the Manhattan Project and of Los Alamos were granted resources to start programs of high-energy physics built around the promise of a new and more powerful particle accelerator, the synchrotron. The synchrotron was also a source of very (...) intense X-rays, useful for research in solid states physics and in biology. As synchrotron X-ray science grew, the experimental practice of protein crystallography, garnered funding, prestige, and acclaim. In Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron, Park Doing examines the change in scientific practice at a synchrotron laboratory as biology rose to dominance over physics. He draws on his own observations and experiences at the Cornell University synchrotron, and considers the implications of that change for the status of scientific claims. Velvet Revolution at the Synchrotron is one of the few recent works in the sociology of science that engages specific scientific and technical claims through participant observation--recorded evocatively and engagingly--to address issues in the philosophy of science. Doing argues that bureaucratic change in science is neither "top-down" nor "bottom-up" but rather performed in and realized through recursively related forums of technical assertion and resistance. He considers the relationship of this change to the content of science, and the implications of this relationship for the project of laboratory studies begun in the late 1970s. (shrink)

A scientific theory is successful, according to Stanford (2000), because it is suficiently observationally similar to its corresponding true theory. The Ptolemaic theory, for example, is successful because it is sufficiently similar to the Copernican theory at the observational level. The suggestion meets the scientific realists' request to explain the success of science without committing to the (approximate) truth of successful scientific theories. I argue that Stanford's proposal has a conceptual flaw. A conceptually sound explanation, I claim, respects the ontological (...) order between properties. A dependent property is to be explained in terms of its underlying property, not the other way around. The applicability of this point goes well beyond the realm of the debate between scientific realists and antirealists. Any philosophers should keep the point in mind when they attempt to give an explanation of a property in their field whatever it may be. (shrink)

It has been not atypical for commentators to argue that Aristotelian friendship features disinterested concern for others, that is, concern for others that is completely independent of one's own happiness. Often, the relevant commentators point to some normative features of Aristotelian friendship, wishing goods for the other's sake and loving the other for herself, where these are assumed to be disinterested. While the disinterested interpretations may be correct overall, I argue that wishing goods for the other's sake and loving the (...) other for herself constitute a dubious foundation for disinterested interpretations. For wishing goods for the other's sake does not involve a reason for action on the other's behalf, and the primary point of loving the other for herself is the role of the other in facilitating one's own happiness, specifically conceived of by Aristotle in terms of one's own virtuous activity. (shrink)

It has often been suggested that people's ordinary understanding of morality involves a belief in objective moral truths and a rejection of moral relativism. The results of six studies call this claim into question. Participants did offer apparently objectivist moral intuitions when considering individuals from their own culture, but they offered increasingly relativist intuitions considering individuals from increasingly different cultures or ways of life. The authors hypothesize that people do not have a fixed commitment to moral objectivism but instead tend (...) to adopt different views depending on the degree to which they consider radically different perspectives on moral questions. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to outline a feminist philosophical approach to the current debate concerning (allegedly) false memories of childhood sexual abuse. Bringing the voices of feminist philosophers to bear on this issue highlights the implicit and sometimes questionable epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical-political commitments of some therapists and scientists involved in these debates. It also illuminates some current debates in and about feminist philosophy.

Philosophy claims that its goal is to search for truth. The history of philosophy, however, demonstrates that this search for truth has not been free from the power dynamics of respective eras. In this article, I claim that the formation of modern East Asian philosophy is one occasion in which the power structure of the time was visibly reflected. The East–West power imbalance at the beginning of the modern period was both implicitly and explicitly imbedded in the formation of modern (...) Buddhist philosophy in East Asia. To demonstrate this point, I will examine the life and thought of two East Asian Buddhist thinkers, Paek Sŏnguk 白性郁 and Inoue Enryō 井上円了, as paradigmatic examples of... (shrink)

All of the world's religions refer to death in some way. Everyone is somewhat familiar with stories about where we go or what happens to us after death. From an early age, we have all heard stories of heaven or hell or some other version of paradise. Many of us believed such stories, and a great number of us still do. When considering that such stories manage to persist in modern times, an age of science and logic, we can be (...) sure that death is an issue to which humans attach great importance. In a sense, the idea of an afterlife can be a great source of comfort to those whose death is imminent, as well as to their loved ones. Those who have led especially difficult lives can look forward to a more pleasant world, while those who have enjoyed happiness and abundance have the chance to experience more good fortune. To those left behind, the idea of an afterlife presents the chance to meet a loved one again. We may not be conscious of it, but such hopes and expectations stay with us throughout our lives. If such an afterlife does exist, then there is no reason to avoid or fear death. Moreover, if we believe that another life awaits us, then we would believe that we are only separated from our loved ones temporarily before being reunited with them later on. (shrink)

Chinese culture is distinguished among the world’s other great traditions by the depth and intensity of its love for rock and stone. This enduring passion manifests itself both in the art of garden making, where rocks form the frame and the central focus of the classical Chinese garden, and also on a smaller scale, in the practice of collecting stones to be displayed on trays or on scholars’ desks indoors. This essay sketches a brief history of lithophilia in China, then (...) adduces the most important philosophical presuppositions for it, and concludes by suggesting some implications for our experience of, and interactions with, the realm of stone and rock. (shrink)

In Nicomachean Ethics ix 9, Aristotle answers the question of why the happy person needs friends. I argue that interpretatively, we must understand ix 9 in instrumental terms. I begin with ix 9’s opening sections, arguing that Aristotle understands the question of why the happy person needs friends, and his answer, in instrumental terms. Aristotle’s first major argument suggests that the instrumental role friends play has to do with one’s own activity, specifically self-contemplation. This argument, however, does not clearly show (...) why friends over and above just any other people are needed. To address this, I attend to NE’s longest sustained argument and show that it makes headway on this question, and in a way that again presents an instrumental account for why the happy person needs friends: facilitation of one’s own activity. (shrink)

This article resolves some difficulties with Aristotle's discussion of the choice-worthy (haireton). Nicomachean Ethics I posits goods that are choice-worthy for themselves and for something else, but Nicomachean Ethics X appears to present being choice-worthy for itself as mutually exclusive with being choice-worthy for something else; moreover, Nicomachean Ethics X seems to claim that action is choice-worthy for itself and, therefore, not choice-worthy for something else but also seems to claim that action is choice-worthy for something else and, therefore, not (...) choice-worthy for itself. As for the latter problem internal to Nicomachean Ethics X, I argue that Aristotle is ultimately committed to the idea that action is choice-worthy for something else. As for the problem between Nicomachean Ethics I and X, I argue that Nicomachean Ethics X only claims something admitted by Nicomachean Ethics I: being choice-worthy for something else is mutually exclusive with being choice-worthy only for itself. (shrink)

“Benefit to the world” and “Heaven’s intent” are not, as is often assumed, separate criteria for action in Mozi’s 墨子 ethics; they are the same in extension but not intension. When Mozi speaks in terms of “Heaven’s intent,” it is to highlight the criterion’s retrospective orientation and its scope; taking a cue from Heaven’s reactions to past deeds, agents specify the scope of “the world” by reference to the past performance of persons regarding benefit to the world. This diverges from (...) a principle that is often attributed to Mozi, of considering the benefit of all equally without regard for past performance. (shrink)

Among scientific realists and anti-realists, there is a well-known, perennial dispute about the reality and knowability of unobservable objects. This dispute is also present among structural realists, who all agree that science gives us genuine knowledge of structure at the unobservable level (however that structure may be understood). Ontic structural realists reduce or eliminate the ontological role of objects, while epistemic structural realists argue that objects do or might exist but are unknowable. In part because ontic structural realism has some (...) evidence from quantum mechanics and the consequent underdetermination of the metaphysics of objects in its favor, the majority of contemporary structural realists adopt that view. In contrast, I argue that epistemic structural realism is a highly compelling view, particularly in the form that remains agnostic about unobservable objects. This view can remain consistent with the empirical data from quantum mechanics, can give a satisfactory account of the metaphysics of structure, and can distinguish itself from other extant versions of realism. I provide two arguments in favor of agnosticism about objects, the first of which argues that suspending belief is consistent with the impetus of naturalized metaphysics, and the second of which argues that agnosticism about objects is a rational response to reflection on the limits and aims of science. Thus, I show that agnostic epistemic structural realism is a defensible and compelling view in the philosophy of science that demands more attention in the literature. (shrink)

This study aims to examine whether recent educational attempts to prepare students for the future can open up the future, using South Korea’s ‘high school credit system’ as an example. To provide differentiated instruction that recognizes differences and maximizes students’ potential, the Korean government recently launched a ‘high school credit system.’ The primary goal of this system is to assist students in identifying their strengths and interests, selecting courses for them to pursue, and following their plans independently. The system appears (...) to respect each student’s unique personality and value the self-dominance of the liberating subject. Ironically, however, it expects students to map their lives according to ‘given’ or molar identitarian categories for self-formation, thereby representing already constructed life forms. It subjugates students’ potential by linking subjective formation to society’s dominant codes and deploying the forged self within existing social structures. To avoid limiting students’ potential, it is essential to refrain from defining ‘the self’ as a given and fixed construct and restricting education solely to courses that match its current characteristics. Education for a future should promote a flexible educational journey that accommodates changes in interests and passions as they evolve over time. (shrink)

It has often been suggested that people’s ordinary folk understanding of morality involves a rejection of moral relativism and a belief in objective moral truths. The results of six studies call this claim into question. Participants did offer apparently objectivist intuitions when confronted with questions about individuals from their own culture, but they offered increasingly relativist intuitions as they were confronted with questions about individuals from increasingly different cultures or ways of life. In light of these data, the authors hypothesize (...) that people do not have a fixed commitment to moral objectivism but instead tend to adopt different views depending on the degree to which they consider radically different perspectives on moral questions. [NOTE: This is a reprint of Sarkissian et al 2011]. (shrink)

This essay expounds on Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s recent book, Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side, Moral and Social Responsibility on the Free Highway, and advocates placing narrow limitations on hate speech posted to social media websites. The Internet is a limitless platform for information and data sharing. It is, in addition, however, a low-cost, high-speed dissemination mechanism that facilitates the spreading of hate speech including violent and virtual threats. Indictment and prosecution for social media posts that transgress from opinion to inciteful hate (...) speech are appropriate in limited circumstances. This article uses various real-world examples to explore when limitations on Internet-based hate speech are appropriate. In October 2015, twenty thousand Israelis joined a civil lawsuit filed against Facebook in the Supreme Court for the State of New York. Led by the civil rights organization, Shurat HaDin, the suit alleges Facebook allows Palestinian extremists to openly recruit and train terrorists to plan violent attacks calling for the murder of Israeli Jews through their Facebook pages. The suit raises important questions, amongst them: When should the government initiate similar suits to impose criminal sanctions for targeted hate speech posted to Facebook? What constitute effective restrictions on social media that also balance society’s need for robust dialogue and free communication, subject to limitations reflecting a need for order and respect among people? Our essay progresses in four stages. First, we examine philosophical origins of free speech and the historical foundations of free speech in the United States. Second, we provide an overview of American free speech jurisprudence. Third, we address particular jurisprudence that provides a framework for imposing limitations on free speech in the context of social media. American history and jurisprudence embrace free speech as a grounding principle of democracy, yet simultaneously subject speech to limitations. Finally, through a comparative exploration of real-world examples, we address the narrow instance when limitations on inciteful and targeted hate speech are appropriate. (shrink)

Despite worldwide efforts to reduce the consumption of tobacco, legislative and educational measures have failed to eradicate the practice of cigarette smoking. Indeed, in many populations, particularly in the developing world, its prevalence is increasing. Consequently were alternative strategies to become available to address the problem, they would deserve serious consideration. One potential strategy which may become a real possibility in the future might be the vaccination of children against the pleasurable effects of nicotine. Were such a vaccine to become (...) available, children who had been inoculated would be less likely to start smoking, and even if they did, would be able to quit more easily. However, as Hasman and Holm discussed, vaccinating against a behavior rather than a disease is not ethically unproblematic, and they concluded that inoculation of infants and young children with a permanently effective nicotine conjugate vaccine should not take place, as it robbed children of the right to a smoking future. In this article, I will re-evaluate some of their arguments, and will conclude that in fact the private and public goods that inoculation with a ‘smoking vaccine’ would produce, outweigh the possible impingements on future autonomy that may result from such vaccination programme. (shrink)

The emotion theory of concepts maintains that concepts may be in part constituted by sentiments and emotions. Very few works in the contemporary concepts literature discuss this possibility that concepts may be sentiments and emotions, and those that do discuss this possibility ultimately fail to establish the viability of this view. However, by in part relying on experimental evidence from psychology and neuroscience, I contend that some concrete and abstract concepts are in part constituted by sentiments and emotions.

In a recent number Mr. O. J. Todd has discussed the clumsy scansion of a line in a Delphic oracle, and has called fresh attention to the problem of the Pythia's prophesyings in verse. The chief difficulty consists in the differences between the indications on this subject as given by our various sources. The conventional phrases in most authors from Pindar and Herodotus until late periods describe the responses as uttered by the Pythia herself. This picture seems to imply that (...) the Pythia originated the verse form of the oracle. But this view would take no account of the existence of the official known as the προφήτης whose business was evidently to deliver the response to the inquirer. (shrink)

Human microbiome research makes causal connections between entire microbial communities and a wide array of traits that range from physiological diseases to psychological states. To evaluate these causal claims, we first examine a well-known single-microbe causal explanation: of Helicobacter pylori causing ulcers. This apparently straightforward causal explanation is not so simple, however. It does not achieve a key explanatory standard in microbiology, of Koch’s postulates, which rely on manipulations of single-microorganism cultures to infer causal relationships to disease. When Koch’s postulates (...) are framed by an interventionist causal framework, it is clearer what the H. pylori explanation achieves and where its explanatory strengths lie. After assessing this ‘simple’, single-microbe case, we apply the interventionist framework to two key areas of microbiome research, in which obesity and mental health states are purportedly explained by microbiomes. Despite the experimental data available, interventionist criteria for explanation show that many of the causal claims generated by microbiome research are weak or misleading. We focus on the stability, specificity and proportionality of proposed microbiome causal explanations, and evaluate how effectively these dimensions of causal explanation are achieved in some promising avenues of research. We suggest some conceptual and explanatory strategies to improve how causal claims about microbiomes are made. (shrink)