Let us take an example that Bernard Williams (1981: 102) made famous. Suppose that you want a gin and tonic, and you believe that the stuff in front of you is gin. In fact, however, the stuff is not gin but petrol. So if you drink the stuff (even mixed with tonic), it will be decidedly unpleasant, to say the least. Should you choose to drink the stuff or not?

Here is a definition of knowledge: for you to know a proposition p is for you to have an outright belief in p that is correct precisely because it manifests the virtue of rationality. This definition resembles Ernest Sosa’s “virtue theory”, except that on this definition, the only virtue that must be manifested in all instances of knowledge is rationality, and no reductive account of rationality is attempted—rationality is assumed to be an irreducibly normative notion. This definition is compatible with (...) “internalism” about rationality, and with a form of “pragmatic encroachment” on the conditions of rational outright belief. An interpretation is given of this definition, and especially of the sense of ’because’ that it involves. On this interpretation, this definition entails that both safety and adherence are necessary conditions on knowledge; it supports a kind of contextualism about terms like ‘knowledge’; and it provides resources to defend safety, adherence, and contextualism, against some recent objections. (shrink)

In this paper, I apply the "conceptual role semantics" approach that I have proposed elsewhere (according to which the meaning of normative terms is given by their role in practical reasoning or deliberation) to the meaning of the term 'ought'. I argue that this approach can do three things: It can give an adequate explanation of the special connection that normative judgments have to practical reasoning and motivation for action. It can give an adequate account of why the central principles (...) of deontic logic are correct. It can give an explanation of the precise ways in which the term 'ought' is systematically context-sensitive, so that the term expresses different (but systematically related) concepts in different contexts. (shrink)

Often, when one faces a choice between alternative actions, there are reasons both for and against each alternative. On one way of understanding these words, what one “ought to do all things considered (ATC)” is determined by the totality of these reasons. So, these reasons can somehow be “combined” or “aggregated” to yield an ATC verdict on these alternatives. First, various assumptions about this sort of aggregation of reasons are articulated. Then it is shown that these assumptions allow for the (...) proof of a “Reasons Aggregation Theorem” – parallel to John Harsanyi’s 1955 “Social Aggregation Theorem”. All reasons for action are grounded in reason-providing values; and, for every such reason-providing value, there is in principle a way of measuring how strongly this value counts against each alternative. The theorem tells us that the appropriate measure of how much reason ATC there is against each alternative is simply a weighted sum of the strengths with which these values count against that alternative; the agent ought not ATC to perform an action iff there is ATC more reason against it than against some available alternative. (shrink)

This essay offers an account of the truth conditions of sentences involving deontic modals like ‘ought’, designed to capture the difference between objective and subjective kinds of ‘ought’ This account resembles the classical semantics for deontic logic: according to this account, these truths conditions involve a function from the world of evaluation to a domain of worlds (equivalent to a so-called “modal base”), and an ordering of the worlds in such domains; this ordering of the worlds itself arises from two (...) further elements – a probability function and a value function – since this ordering ranks the worlds in accordance with the expected value of certain propositions that are true at those worlds. Thus, a proposition of the form ‘Ought (p)’ is true at a world of evaluation w if and only if p is true at all the top-ranked worlds in the domain assigned to w. This domain of worlds consists of metaphysically possible worlds, while the probability function is defined over a space of epistemically possible worlds (which may include metaphysically impossible worlds, such as worlds where Hesperus is not Phosphorus). Evidence is given that this account assigns the correct truth conditions to a wide range of sentences involving ‘ought’. Since these truth conditions involve both a domain of metaphysically possible worlds and a space of epistemically possible worlds, there are two corresponding kinds of conditional involving ‘ought’, depending on which space of worlds is restricted by the conditional. Finally, some objections that might be raised against this account are answered. (shrink)

Intuitively, it seems that some belief-forming practices have the following three properties: 1. They are rational practices, and the beliefs that we form by means of these practices are themselves rational or justified beliefs. 2. Even if in most cases these practices reliably lead to correct beliefs (i.e., beliefs in true propositions), they are not infallible: it is possible for beliefs that are formed by means of these practices to be incorrect (i.e., to be beliefs in false propositions). 3. The (...) rationality of these practices is basic or primitive. That is, the rationality of these practices is not due simply to the availability, by means of some process of reasoning that relies purely on other practices, of a rational or justified belief in the reliability of these practices. -/- How can there be such practices? This paper offers an answer to that question. (shrink)

Hierocles, a Stoic of the second century CE, famously deployed an image of the ‘concentric circles’ that surround each of us. The image should not be read as advocating absolute impartiality (in the style of classical utilitarianism) or as illustrating the Stoic theory of oikeiōsis. Instead, it is designed to illustrate how it is ‘appropriate to act’ in certain cases. Like other Stoics, Hierocles bases his investigation of appropriate acts on what is ‘in accordance with nature’. According to his view, (...) each of us has a duty of mutual aid towards every other human being—but a weightier duty towards those who are socially closer than those who are more distant. The fundamental principle is that each of us has the duty of being an ‘ally’ of every other human being in serving the natural purposes of all the circles to which we and that other human being both belong. (shrink)

Richard Price’s moral epistemology provides a distinctive account, not only of the sources of our moral knowledge, but also of its limits – that is, of the moral truths that we do not and even cannot know. According to this moral epistemology, the fundamental moral truths are necessary rather than contingent; if they are knowable at all, they are knowable a priori. In general, fundamental moral truths are akin to mathematical truths. Specifically, these necessary moral truths are grounded in the (...) essences of act-types, which are knowable through ‘intuition’ if knowable at all. However, Price firmly rejects utilitarianism, recognizing several different ‘branches of virtue’, which can conflict with each other. As he argues, we cannot know the truth about act-types that exemplify such conflicting branches of virtue if the competing considerations are too finely balanced. This view of moral epistemology is compared with those of several other philosophers, including W. D. Ross. It is argued that Price has a more unified view than Ross: for Price, all moral knowledge flows from a priori intuition, but this is compatible with our being ignorant of many of the fine details of the fundamental truths of morality. (shrink)

This chapter is concerned with the distinction that most contemporary epistemologists express by distinguishing between “propositional” and “doxastic” justification. The goal is to develop an account of this distinction that applies, not just to full or outright beliefs, but also to partial credences—and indeed, in principle, to attitudes of all kinds. The standard way of explaining this distinction, in terms of the “basing relation”, is criticized, and an alternative account—the “virtue manifestation” account—is proposed in its place. This account has a (...) certain kinship with the epistemological approach that is known as “reliabilism”, but it also has certain key differences—above all, it is compatible with an internalist view of rationality. (shrink)

v. 1. Inheritance and vocation.--v. 2. Philosophy and psychology.

Pursuing Justice, Second Edition, examines the issue of justice by considering the origins of the idea, formal systems of justice, current global issues of justice, and ways in which justice might be achieved by individuals, organizations, and the global community. Part 1 demonstrates how the idea of justice has emerged over time, starting with religion and philosophy, then moving to the justice as a concern of the state, and finally to the concept of social justice. Part 2 outlines the very (...) different mechanisms used by various nations for achieving state justice, including systems based on common law, civil law, and Islamic law, with a separate discussion of the US justice system. Part 3 focuses on four contemporary issues of justice: war, genocide, slavery, and the environment. Finally, Part 4 shows how individuals and organizations can go about pursuing justice, and describes the rise of global justice. This updated timely book helps students understand the complexities and nuances of a society's pursuit of justice. It provides students with the foundations of global justice systems, integrating Greek philosophies and major religious perspectives into a justice perspective, and contributes to undergraduate understanding of international justice bodies, NGOs, and institutions. New edition is completely updated and revised to achieve relevance for today's students Covers concepts of justice as well as ideas for pursuing and achieving justice Examines how our modern laws began, and traces their evolution to today's laws Presents concepts and issues in justice studies as well as a comparison of several systems of law Teaching resources include discussion questions and real-world examples. (shrink)

What reasons for action do we have? What explains why we have these reasons? This paper articulates some of the basic structural features of a theory that would provide answers to these questions. According to this theory, reasons for action are all grounded in intrinsic values, but in a way that makes room for a thoroughly non-consequentialist view of the way in which intrinsic values generate reasons for aaction.

Many philosophers have claimed that the intentional is normative. (This claim is the analogue, within the philosophy of mind, of the claim that is often made within the philosophy of language, that meaning is normative.) But what exactly does this claim mean? And what reason is there for believing it? In this paper, I shall first try to clarify the content of the claim that the intentional is normative. Then I shall examine a number of the arguments that philosophers have (...) advanced for this claim (and for the parallel claim that meaning is normative). As we shall see, many of these arguments are unsuccessful. However, I shall close by giving a sketch of what may be a successful argument for this claim. (shrink)

Substance The term “substance” has two main uses in philosophy. Both originate in what is arguably the most influential work of philosophy ever written, Aristotle’s Categories. In its first sense, “substance” refers to those things that are object-like, rather that property-like. For example, an elephant is a substance in this sense, whereas the height or … Continue reading Substance →.

We use some simple facts about the wtt-degrees of r.e. sets together with a construction to answer some questions concerning the join and meet operators in the r.e. degrees. The construction is that of an r.e. Turing degree a with just one wtt-degree in a such that a is the join of a minimal pair of r.e. degrees. We hope to illustrate the usefulness of studying the stronger reducibility orderings of r.e. sets for providing information about Turing reducibility.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kenneth Burke, John Dewey, and the Pursuit of the PublicPaul StobIn Deliberation Day, Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin argue for the creation of a national holiday, "Deliberation Day," in which citizens come together over a two-day period in their local schools and community centers to deliberate over the merits of presidential candidates and their platforms (Ackerman and Fishkin 2004). While Ackerman and Fishkin propose that the government pay each (...) citizen a $150 stipend for voluntary participation, the purpose is not so much to monetarily to reward citizens for "showing up" as it is to foster an enriched civic culture that would send shockwaves through America's political infrastructure: "If Deliberation Day succeeded, everything else would change: the candidates, the media, the activists, the interest groups, the spin doctors, the advertisers, the pollsters, the fund raisers, the lobbyists, the political parties. All would have no choice but to adapt to a more attentive and informed public" (3). The task of Deliberation Day would be to create a new social context in which citizens could become enlightened through public participation. As the authors conclude the book, "We can, through an act of political imagination, create new institutions for redeeming the ancient promise of democratic citizenship. Ordinary men and women need not be the hapless playthings of the powerful. They can and must find new ways to hold their leaders to account, and redeem their dignity as human beings by responsibly shaping their collective destiny" (219).Ackerman and Fishkin's proposal is indeed filled with political imagination. I bring their proposal to light not to critique the possibilities and limitations of Deliberation Day, but to understand the way in which the authors understand "the public." At the bottom, what the polity needs, Ackerman and Fishkin believe, is a public space dedicated to the reinvigoration [End Page 226] of political culture. It is not that the citizenry is incapable of hammering out intelligent political solutions, but that it needs access to social contexts that facilitate deliberation and the emergence of a common good. To foster a culture of political intelligence, the public needs only the chance to enter the forums that will facilitate thorough, cooperative political decision-making.Ackerman and Fishkin are not alone in calling for access to or creation of these types of forums. Habermas's bourgeois public sphere—a public space in which citizens could come together and rationally debate the activities of the state—essentially represents the evolution of a context, a social space, a public arena (Habermas 1989). The bourgeois public sphere is meant to be egalitarian, providing citizens a forum in which to debate openly and foster a common political consciousness.1 But this sphere has proved problematic for a number of scholars. Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge (1993), for example, propose a proletarian public sphere to counter capitalism's socioeconomic domination over public resources. Joan Landes (1988) argues that the bourgeois public sphere entails male domination in public life, to the exclusion of women. Nancy Fraser (1992) builds on the feminist critique by adopting the term "counterpublics," collectives of citizens—women, peasants, the working class, and other groups demarcated by issues of race, gender, and ethnicity—that arise in reaction to the dominant public sphere.2In the introduction to Counterpublics and the State (2001), Robert Asen and Daniel Brouwer argue that critiques of the bourgeois public sphere specifically and public sphere theory generally amount to three "reconfigurations" in the way in which scholars think of the public. First, scholars have come to recognize the existence and interaction of multiple public spheres. Second, they have come to acknowledge permeable boundaries of access to the multiple public spheres. Third, scholars have come to recognize the dynamic role of the state in shaping public discourse. One considerable result of these three reconfigurations is an increasing recognition of the political divisions that permeate society (Asen and Brouwer 2001, 17-25).If Asen and Brouwer are right, and I think they are, these three reconfigurations represent the general thrust of contemporary public sphere scholarship, including as it is understood among communication scholars.3 And however diverse such scholarship may be, a few common themes seem to recur across... (shrink)

Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) deserves recognition as one of the most important English seventeenth-century philosophers after Hobbes and Locke. In opposition to Hobbes, Cudworth proposes an innatist theory of knowledge which may be contrasted with the empirical position of his younger contemporary Locke, and in moral philosophy he anticipates the ethical rationalists of the eighteenth century. A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality is his most important work, and this volume makes it available, together with his shorter Treatise of Freewill, (...) in its first modern edition, with a historical introduction, a chronology of his life, and an essay on further reading. (shrink)

"First Published in 1999, Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.".

Designed to serve as both a systematic account of James's development and a repository of selections from his unpublished writings, the one-volume work (which forms the basis for this new paperback edition) offers a brief and convenient sourcebook of James's thought, set forth in terms that require no previous familiarity with technical problems of philosophy and psychology.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Terministic Screens," Social Constructionism, and the Language of Experience:Kenneth Burke's Utilization of William JamesPaul StobKenneth Burke's influence on various academic disciplines is clear in the number of books and articles published annually on his thought. It is also clear insofar as academics continue to turn to his work for insights on handling scholarly problems. That is to say, not only do we explore the dimensions of his work, we (...) also bring it to bear on current disputes in the hopes of clarifying or moving past the issues we face. His thought, in short, has a currency that transcends its historical period. "As we meet new challenges that echo the past," writes Ross Wolin, "Burke's inquiries into meaning, orientation, faction, communication, and rhetoric are as urgent today as when Burke raised them long ago and for decades after."1By bringing the terms of Burke's work to bear on current disputes, we connect him to the vocabularies and discourses that surround us. His thought becomes familiar through the lenses we employ, as we intermix his ideas with our own terminology and see his work through the language of our discussions. One example of this phenomenon is the way scholars have been describing Burke's philosophical outlook. Burke's thought, we are told, is that of a social constructionist. Edward Schiappa, for example, concludes that Burke gives us a view of the world as intersubjectively created: "Our understanding is social in the sense that our concepts are human-made and are part of a shared language. Our understanding is [End Page 130] constructed in the sense that our claims, interpretations, and orientations constitute 'conceptual fabrics' that weave together contingent sets of beliefs and social practices."2 Paul Jay turns the sentiment into a more explicitly epistemological point: "The most radical aspect of Burke's evolving theory of language at this time is his recognition that language—inherently metaphorical—constructs rather than reflects knowledge."3 James Chesebro highlights social constructionism as one of the hallmarks of Burke's dramatism: "For Burke, the realm of symbol-using is unique to the human being. Symbol-using is a solely conventional, arbitrary, and social process. It allows human beings to become self-conscious, create motives independently of physical phenomena, and ultimately to create social constructions of reality."4 Dennis Ciesielski argues that Burke's "terministic screens" define "base reality into truth-systems unique to each respective discourse community and impl[y] a neo-pragmatic, social constructionist pattern for the making of meaning."5 Finally, Robert Wess characterizes Burke's entire career as the evolution from a materialist, biological-essentialist view of the human self to a social constructionist view.6Generally speaking, "social constructionism" is a metaphor that attempts to capture the way Burke viewed the nature of the world and the function of language therein. It suggests that symbols, terms, and language form the building blocks, the bricks and mortar, of the structures of our collective life. We employ symbols that construct our social realities, similar to the way a contractor employs the materials and labor that construct a house. Consequently, the realities we face are not inherent in nature but are built up discursively and can therefore be reconstructed as we alter our discursive practices.7The social construction metaphor positions Burke's philosophical out-look in terms that are familiar to us, though not necessarily familiar to him. That is to say, the label of social constructionist is recent, and it comes not from Burke's work but from intellectual developments after he wrote the bulk of his corpus.8 We apply it to him retroactively, meshing together his intellectual milieu with our own. And as Ian Hacking reminds us, "The phrase has become code. If you use it favorably, you deem yourself rather radical. If you trash the phrase, you declare that you are rational, reasonable, and respectable."9Labeling Burke a social constructionist wraps his thought in a current metaphor, merging his perspective with a vocabulary that was not part of his project. While such a merger is not necessarily a bad thing—to some degree the process is inevitable10—a certain danger... (shrink)

Twenty years ago, even ten years ago, one might have begun an essay about the intersection of pragmatism and rhetoric by lamenting the dearth of scholarship on the subject. Today, no such lamentations are needed. The past decade has seen an explosion of interest in the way pragmatism and rhetoric can profitably inform each other. Offering everything from formulations of pragmatist rhetorical theory (Mailloux 1998; Schollmeier 2002; Danisch 2007; Crick 2010) to explorations of pragmatist methodology in the study of rhetorical (...) texts (Stroud 2009a; Stroud 2010) to analyses of what individual pragmatists have contributed to the history of rhetoric (Asen and Brouwer 2003; Asen 2003; Finnegan 2003; Greene 2003; Stob .. (shrink)

We defend a functionalist approach to emotion that begins by focusing on emotions as central states with causal connections to behavior and to other cognitive states. The approach brackets the conscious experience of emotion, lists plausible features that emotions exhibit, and argues that alternative schemes are unpromising candidates. We conclude with the benefits of our approach: one can study emotions in animals; one can look in the brain for the implementation of specific features; and one ends up with an architecture (...) of the mind in which emotions are fully accommodated through their relations to the rest of cognition. Our article focuses on arguing for this general approach; as such, it is an essay in the philosophy of emotion rather than in the psychology or neuroscience of emotion. (shrink)

83 The SHIP-MASTER'S ASSISTANT, and OWNER'S MA- NUAL ; containing general Information necessary for Merchants, Owners, and Masters of Ships, Officers, ...

Most approaches to animal ethics ground the moral standing of nonhumans in some appeal to their capacities for intelligent autonomy or mental sentience. _Corporal Compassion _emphasizes the phenomenal and somatic commonality of living beings; a philosophy of body that seeks to displace any notion of anthropomorphic empathy in viewing the moral experiences of nonhuman living beings. Ralph R. Acampora employs phenomenology, hermeneutics, existentialism and deconstruction to connect and contest analytic treatments of animal rights and liberation theory. In doing so, (...) he focuses on issues of being and value, and posits a felt nexus of bodily being, termed symphysis, to devise an interspecies ethos. Acampora uses this broad-based bioethic to engage in dialogue with other strains of environmental ethics and ecophilosophy. _Corporal Compassion_ examines the practical applications of the somatic ethos in contexts such as laboratory experimentation and zoological exhibition, and challenges practitioners to go beyond recent reforms and look to a future beyond exploitation or total noninterference--a posthumanist culture that advocates caring in a participatory approach. (shrink)

Over the last decades, curator Nicolas Bourriaud has drawn significant inspiration for his writings on contemporary art from the theories of the Situationist International (SI), an avant-garde group in existence from 1957 until 1972. Mischaracterizing the SI’s concepts of the situation, détournement, and the dérive, Bourriaud claims to update these concepts with concepts of his own: relational aesthetics, detourage, and radicant aesthetics. This article identifies such misrepresentations and highlights the differences between Bourriaud’s paradigms and those of the SI. This contextual (...) restitution also provides an opportunity to examine Bourriaud’s general methodology of substituting conceptual formalism for art historical theory. Bourriaud’s publications repeatedly claim a historical materialist perspective on aesthetics, only to eventually eliminate this perspective; his use and abuse of Situationist theory is the foundational example for this pattern. More than the artworks showcased in Bourriaud’s exhibitions and referenced in his publications, his artistic paradigms describe and delineate his own philosophical sleight of hand. (shrink)

During his long career, John Dewey produced an almost endless number of pages of dense philosophical prose, giving those interested in his work plenty to do. Even scholars of rhetoric have found a host of reasons to return to Dewey’s corpus, despite the fact that Dewey himself seemed, at best, uninterested in rhetoric. Two recent works—Robert Danisch’s Pragmatism, Democracy, and the Necessity of Rhetoric and Nathan Crick’s Democracy and Rhetoric: John Dewey on the Arts of Becoming—have already fruitfully mined Dewey’s (...) writings for insights on how pragmatist philosophy intersects with the rhetorical tradition. Now comes Scott Stroud’s John Dewey and the Artful Life. Like Danisch and Crick, Stroud explores the nexus .. (shrink)