I argue that incomprehensibility (what the ancient skeptics called acatalepsia) plays a central role in the skepticism of both Bayle and Hume. I challenge a commonly held view (recently argued by Todd Ryan) that Hume, unlike Bayle, does not present oppositions of reason--what Kant called antimonies.

Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness is in the midst of a cool reception. It appears that this is due to the fact that Foot's naturalism draws on a picture of the biological world at odds with the view embraced by most scientists and philosophers. Foot's readers commonly assume that the account of the biological world that she must want to adhere to, and that she nevertheless mistakenly departs from, is the account offered by contemporary neo-Darwinian biological sciences. But as is evident (...) in her notion of function, Foot does not employ an evolutionary view of the biological world. I will attempt to show, first, that it is for good reason that Foot is not operating with an evolutionary view of function; her views do not aim to unseat evolutionary views of function, but instead simply have quite different theoretical goals. Second, I aim to underline the importance to Foot's naturalism of the fact that we are practically reasoning creatures. The profundity of Foot's ethical naturalism rests in how she approaches our nature as practically reasoning creatures. In this aspect of Foot's thought, there is a significant Kantian strain that is surprising to find in someone who calls herself an ethical naturalist. 1. (shrink)

IntroductionRecent work in virtue theory has breathed new life into the analogy between virtue and skill.See, for example, Annas ; Bloomfield ; Stichter ; Swartwood . There is good reason to think that this analogy is worth pursuing since it may help us understand the distinctive nexus of reasoning, knowledge, and practical ability that is found in virtue by pointing to a similar nexus found outside moral contexts in skill. In some ways, there is more than an analogy between skill (...) and virtue. Clearly, both are what might be called ‘practical states,’ that is, conditions of agents with regard to action. For some virtue theorists, the analogy is superseded in favor of a claim to identity. As Paul Bloomfield puts it:… adopting the thesis that virtues are skills hands us a viable moral epistemology by reducing the problem of moral epistemology to the analysis of the epistemology of diagnosis and problem solving employed by doctors, navigators, and .. (shrink)

Practical wisdom is the sine qua non of good conduct for Aristotelian virtue ethicists. Aristotelians conceive it as the virtue responsible for the intellectual side of good conduct, which involves having the right goal and deliberating well about what fulfils that goal, among other tasks. But is there any such trait as practical wisdom? Given the diversity of jobs practical wisdom is asked to do (seven goals are often enumerated), there may be a cluster of traits corresponding to what Aristotelians (...) are talking about, so there really isn’t one trait. In this paper, I defend a traditional Aristotelian position on practical wisdom, arguing that it is one thing despite having different functions. Following Thomas Aquinas, we can see practical wisdom as having parts. Those parts may be psychological components (integral parts) of the trait, or they may be derivative functions (virtual parts), things that someone with practical wisdom is also able to do because they have practical wisdom. Still, practical wisdom is one because it is a trait that functions to enable us to pursue the good as good; it possesses what I will call here ‘practical unity’ as the master virtue of praxis or acting well full stop. (shrink)

This volume focuses on controversial issues that stem from Philippa Foot's later writings on natural goodness which are at the center of contemporary discussions of virtue ethics. The chapters address questions about how Foot relates judgments of moral goodness to human nature, how Foot understands happiness, and addresses objections to her framework from the perspective of empirical biology. The volume will be of value to any student or scholar with an interest in virtue ethics and analytic moral philosophy.

John McDowell has argued that for human needs to matter in practical deliberation, we must have already acquired the full range of character traits that are imparted by an ethical upbringing. Since our upbringings can diverge considerably, his argument makes trouble for any Aristotelian ethical naturalism that wants to support a single set of moral virtues. I argue here that there is a story to be told about the normal course of human life according to which it is no (...) coincidence that there is agreement on the virtues. Because we are creatures who arrive at personhood only by learning from others in a relation of dependency, we cannot help but see ourselves as creatures for whom non-instrumental rationality is the norm. Those who train others in personhood must view the trainee's interests as having a value independent of their interests and must imbue the trainee with a sense of that value. Extending and preserving the sense of self-worth that we must acquire if we are to acquire personhood requires we see ourselves as creatures who need something like the virtues. (shrink)

Naturalism and analytic moral philosophy from Moore to Hare -- Moral concepts in Foot's early naturalism -- Against moral rationalism -- Virtue and morality -- Nonconsequentialism and moral problems -- Human nature and virtue -- Nietzsche and morality -- Philippa Foot's moral vision.

My contention is that virtue ethics offers an important critique of traditional philosophical conceptions of moral status as well as an alternative view of important moral issues held to depend on moral status. I argue that the scope of entities that deserve consideration depends on our conception of the demands of virtues like justice; which entities deserve consideration emerges from a moral view of a world shaped by that conception. The deepest disputes about moral status depend on conflicting conceptions of (...) justice. I advocate a conception of the virtue of justice that can account for the cases that pose problems for the legalistic views of moral status and discuss what ideal moral debate looks like on this view. (shrink)

Psyche and Soma is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the conceptions of the human soul or mind and body, through the course of more than two thousand years of Western history. Thirteen specially commissioned chapters, each written by a recogized expert, discuss figures such as the physicians Hippocrates, Galen, Stahl, and Cabanis; theologians St Paul, Augustine, and Aquinas; and philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Descartes, Leibniz, and La Mettrie. The chapters explore in chronlogical sequence the views of these writers on (...) such questions as the soul's immortality, the control it exerts over the body, how mental disturbances arise out of bodily imbalances, and the roles of the priest and the physician in promoting spiritual and mental health. Psyche and Soma will be a key point of reference and a rich source of illumination in this central area of human inquiry. (shrink)

Introduction A brief look at the competing present-day interpretations of Hume's philosophy will leave the uninitiated reader completely baffled. On the one hand , Hume is seen as a philosopher who attempted to analyse concepts with ...

RésuméUne interprétation attrayante de la psychologie morale d'Aristote soutient que la vertu de caractère fixe la fin de la bonne vie. De ce point de vue, la sagesse pratique ouphronēsisne fournit que les moyens vers la fin qui est saisie par les vertus de caractère. Pourtant, cette vision a du mal à rendre compte de la suprématie de la vie contemplative, qui est clairement la meilleure vie au sens paradigmatique ou strict pour Aristote. Dans cet article, je soutiens que l'intellect (...) joue un rôle pour Aristote dans la réalisation de la priorité de la vie contemplative et son intégration dans la totalité de notre vie pratique. (shrink)

The central idea of Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is that moral judgments belong to the same logical kind of judgments as those that attribute natural goodness and defect to plants and animals. But moral judgments focus on a subset of human powers that play a special role in our lives as rational animals, namely, reason, will, and desire. These powers play a central role in properly human actions: those actions in which we go for something that we see and understand (...) as good. Many readers of Foot resolutely ignore what she says about the human good being sui generis and obstinately continue to read her as advocating a version of naturalism grounded in empirical study of human nature. One might wonder how else it could count as a naturalistic view unless we could square the view with nature as studied by the empirical sciences. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical response to this question: help can come from turning to recent defenses of Aristotelian essentialism. Foot’s naturalism can square with nature as interpreted through the lens of Aristotelian essentialism. On such a view, the virtues are perfections of human powers including reason, will, and desire. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalists argue that moral norms are natural norms that apply to human beings. A central issue for neo-Aristotelians is to determine what belongs to the good human life; the question is complicated, since we take up a diversity of different lives, many of which seem good, and it seems unclear what the human species-characteristic life really is. The Aristotelian tradition gives some guidance on this question, however, because it describes us as rational animals with intellectual and appetitive powers; (...) the perfection of those powers is what makes us good qua human. This is especially well spelled out in Thomas Aquinas; he takes moral virtues of courage and temperance to be perfections of our sense appetites, a power of going for things presented as good through our senses. These virtues thereby shape our passions, specifically the passions of fear, daring and concupiscent love, which are a result of the sense appetites pursuing what appears as good. This view provides a framework for virtue, which can then be taken as the perfections of distinct powers shared by all human beings, though actualized in a variety of ways. In this article, I will focus on the passion of fear, which I here describe, following Aquinas, as a movement of sense appetite away from evils that are difficult or impossible to avoid. My focus will be on showing that this passion is necessary, irreplaceable by our cognitive powers, and that the underlying sensitive appetites that produce fear must be perfected for any human being to count as good. (shrink)

Neo‐Aristotelian ethical naturalists take the concept “human” to be central to practical philosophy. According to this view, practical philosophy aims at a distinctive human good that defines its subject matter. Hence, practical philosophy can survive neither the elimination of the concept nor its subsumption under a more general concept, such as that of the rational agent. The challenge central to properly formulating Aristotelian naturalism is: How can the concept of the human be specified in a way that captures the distinctive (...) role that it is supposed to play in practical philosophy? For the view to be sustained, the concept “human” as it figures in practical philosophy must not designate rationality plus a set of facts that we learn empirically about ourselves and then consider from a detached standpoint of reason. Heidegger's existential analytic offers an approach to addressing the challenge to neo‐Aristotelian naturalism and, therefore, a way of capturing the sui generis human good. I aim to show that concepts of the existential analytic in Being and Time have their origin or parallels in readings of Aristotle and that they capture the distinctive character of the being that we are, exclusively, completely, and as a unity. I argue that fundamental ontology offers a way to grasp the integral unity and irreplaceability of the human that lies at the heart of the neo‐Aristotelian project. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a secular conception of blasphemy as a grave moral wrong. I argue for this conception on the basis of a neo-Aristotelian conception of virtue ethics. Specifically, I argue that there is a virtue of intellectual fidelity to matters of great importance: morally permissible ends. In order to structure our lives around such ends, which is essential to living a characteristic human life, we must consistently bear in mind what we know to be true about (...) our ends and not succumb to a temptation to belittle our ends when we struggle in our attempts to realize them. Conversely, a disposition to believe falsehoods about morally permissible ends is a vice, and acts that express that character trait are blasphemous and wrong. Likewise, I argue that it is wrong to belittle or promote falsehoods about the morally permissible ends of others, for we must recognize that in pursuing morally permissible ends of various sorts, people are realizing their humanity in worthwhile ways. (shrink)

This Element presents an interpretation and defence of Philippa Foot's ethical naturalism. It begins with the often neglected grammatical method that Foot derives from an interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This method shapes her approach to understanding goodness as well as the role that she attributes to human nature in ethical judgment. Moral virtues understood as perfections of human powers are central to Foot's account of ethical judgment. The thrust of the interpretation offered here is that Foot's metaethics takes (...) ethical judgment to be tied to our self-understanding as a sort of rational animal. Foot's metaethics thereby offers a compelling contemporary approach that preserves some of the best insights of the Aristotelian tradition in practical philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 562-564 [Access article in PDF] Louis E. Loeb. Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 280. Cloth, $42.50. As is well known, in the last year of his life, Hume repudiated his Treatise of Human Nature in an Advertisement that he had placed at the front of the volume of his writings containing (...) his mature philosophical works. He asked that only the two Enquiries and other later philosophical writings be regarded as the source of "his philosophical sentiments and principles." But not leaving it at that, he admitted that there were "negligences in his... reasoning" and in his manner of expressing himself in the Treatise. More than twenty years earlier, Hume had admitted that publishing the Treatise in its imperfect state in his youth constituted "a very great Mistake in Conduct." But he did not have sufficient foresight to see that the admission he made in his old age constituted at least as bad an indiscretion of the same kind. Acknowledging mistakes in reasoning and in expression for a philosopher [End Page 562] is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Two bulls in fact: the philosopher and the "reconstructive" historian of philosophy. The former is given ample work in correcting the older philosopher's mistakes; the latter in devising an interpretation of a text that apparently leaves itself open to many. Hence the immense popularity that Hume's Treatise of Human Nature has enjoyed in the two and a half centuries since he asked that it be disregarded. Who cares about "his philosophical sentiments and principles" anyway?Louis Loeb's study of epistemology in Hume's Treatise is both an exercise in "reconstructive history of philosophy" and a philosophical emendation of Hume's (reconstructed) "philosophical system." The first task is pursued in the first five chapters of the book; the second in the last two. "Reconstructive history" as practiced by Loeb does not try to provide "a balanced commentary" but rather "an illuminating and fruitful interpretive perspective" (viii) on what a philosopher has written. Loeb's perspective on Hume's epistemology is derived from details of Hume's psychology of the imagination developed mainly in sections 9-13 of part 3 of book 1, details which Hume himself considered "unnecessary" to the exposition of his mature epistemology in the first Enquiry. Loeb's philosophical emendations derive from his claim that Hume made certain mistakes which led him to despair of the success of his project and settle for sceptical conclusions in part 4. In the last two chapters of the book Loeb seeks to save Hume from his own sceptical conclusions.Loeb regards his account as a development and correction of the kind of naturalistic interpretation of Hume's epistemology that was originally developed by Norman Kemp Smith (21). A naturalistic theory of justification, according to Loeb, is one that grounds beliefs that one already considers to be justified in the psychological mechanisms that generate them. Whereas Kemp Smith argued that justification depends on the "irresistibility" or "inevitability" of the beliefs, Loeb holds that justification depends upon what he calls the "stability" of the belief generating mechanisms. A belief forming mechanism is stable just in case it produces a consistent set of beliefs that will stand up even under "reflection." For example, in part 3 of book 1 (81, 159, 238), Hume presents beliefs based on cause and effect as stable in this sense, and contrasts them with "unphilosophical" belief forming mechanisms such as indoctrination (education). Unlike the former, the latter mechanism generates beliefs that "are frequently contrary... to themselves in different times and places and is never on that account recognized by philosophers" (Treatise117). Furthermore, we have a positive motivation to accept stable mechanisms in that they produce ease or relief from psychological tension. Loeb links this goal both with the ancient Pyrrhonian quest for ataraxia (6-9) and with Hume's moral theory, where he seeks a general point of view as a relief from... (shrink)

This paper defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as a virtue that enables human agents to reflect on and direct their lives toward virtuous ends over time. This view is sometimes assumed to require a commitment to an intellectualist Grand End or blueprint view. On that view, practical wisdom would require philosophical insight and an implausibly well worked out set of weighted preferences. In this paper, I aim to show that particularists can and should take on much of what (...) was thought to belong to the Grand End view. I argue for a conception of practical wisdom as a virtue of extended action that accounts for overarching ends without the need to appeal to an unrealistic, intellectualized blueprint for life. Further, on the view advocated here, as in Aristotle, practical wisdom is a virtue of substantial rationality and a different capacity from instrumental rationality in that it requires reflection on what constitutes a good human life. This is not high-minded philosophical reflection and is, in fact, something rather mundane that draws on the same rational capacities we deploy to assess the goodness of actions. (shrink)

This introductory chapter will frame the volume by discussing Foot’s work on goodness in terms of her approach to morality. It is often assumed that Foot’s approach to morality is that of a virtue ethicist in the contemporary sense of this view. Yet Foot distances herself from such approaches. Morality, for Foot, is closely associated with a system of moral norms adopted by a society. These codes do not follow straightforwardly from reflection on the virtues. There are norms for the (...) construction of such codes, and for these she seems to think that contractualism of the sort advocated by John Rawls and Tim Scanlon provides the best model. What then, is the role of virtues and human goodness in relation to morality on Foot’s view? In cases such as her famous Trolley problem, we are clearly dealing with matters of justice, but how do we get from the virtue of justice to a determinate answer on the morality of turning the trolley? Not, it seems, by reflection on justice alone, but perhaps through reflection on societies shaped by codes embodying differing conceptions of justice. Foot seems then to have had in mind a view according to which the human good sets limits on what could count as a moral code: but how determinate are these? Does it, as Foot clearly hoped, rule out of court the codes of racist societies? (shrink)

A philosopher once wrote the following words:If I examine the PTOLOMAIC and COPERNICAN systems, I endeavour only, by my enquiries, to know the real situation of the planets; that is, in other words, I endeavour to give them, in my conception, the same relations, that they bear towards each other in the heavens. To this operation of the mind, therefore, there seems to be always a real, though often an unknown standard, in the nature of things; nor is truth or (...) falsehood variable by the various apprehensions of mankind. Though all human race should for ever conclude, that the sun moves, and the earth remains at rest, the sun stirs not an inch from his place for all these reasonings; and such conclusions are eternally false and erroneous. (shrink)

The book is a defence of scientific realism. Its primary aim is to argue that it is possible to establish scientific realism without Inference to the Best Explanation. The idea that plays the central role in the book is an "Eddington-inference". Arthur Eddington once considered a hypothetical ichthyologist who concluded from the fact that his net contained no fish smaller than the holes in his net that there were in the sea no fish smaller than the holes in his net. (...) Although Eddington himself defended the inference, the author of the present volume argues on probabilistic grounds that it is likely such an inference is flawed. He generalises the argument to develop a probabilistic justification for scientific realist claims about the existence of unobservable entities. (shrink)

Compatibilist libertarianism claims that alternate possibilities for action at the agential level are consistent with determinism at the physical level. Unlike traditional compatibilism about alternate possibilities, involving conditional or dispositional accounts of the ability to act, compatibilist libertarianism offers us unqualified modalities at the agential level, consistent with physical determinism, a potentially big advance. However, I argue that the account runs up against two problems. Firstly, the way in which the agential modalities are generated talks past the worries of the (...) incompatibilist in the traditional free will problem. As such, it fails to dispel the worries that determinism generates for the incompatibilist. Secondly, in spite of the ingenious use of the supervenience thesis and multiple realizability, the position still allows us to generate the old worry that determinism at the physical level would mean no alternate possibilities at the level of agency. In particular, I develop a new example, the ‘atomic slit case’ that demonstrates how physical level information is salient to what is possible at the agential level, motivating incompatibilism. (shrink)

David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature presents the most important account of skepticism in the history of modern philosophy. In this lucid and thorough introduction to the work, John P. Wright examines the development of Hume's ideas in the Treatise, their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions, and the reception they received when Hume published the Treatise. He explains Hume's arguments concerning the inability of reason to establish the basic beliefs which underlie science and (...) morals, as well as his arguments showing why we are nevertheless psychologically compelled to accept such beliefs. The book will be a valuable guide for those seeking to understand the nature of modern skepticism and its connection with the founding of the human sciences during the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Psyche and Soma is a multi-disciplinary exploration of the history of understanding of the human mind or soul and its relationship to the body, through the course of more than two thousand years. Thirteen specially commissioned chapters, each written by a recognized expert, discuss such figures as the doctors Hippocrates and Galen, the theologians St Paul, Augustine, and Aquinas, and philosophers from Plato to Leibniz.

John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding is among the most important books in philosophy ever written. It is a difficult work dealing with many themes, including the origin of ideas; the extent and limits of human knowledge; the philosophy of perception; and religion and morality. This volume focuses on the last two topics and provides a clear and insightful survey of these overlooked aspects of Locke's best-known work. Four eminent Locke scholars present authoritative discussions of Locke's view on the (...) ethics of belief, personal identity, free will and moral theory. (shrink)

One problem that has formed the focus of much recent discussion on personal identity is the Fission Problem. The aim of this paper is to offer a novel solution to this problem.

The article discusses the varying conceptions of the faculty of ‘the understanding’ in 18th-century British philosophy and logic. Topics include the distinction between the understanding and the will, the traditional division of three acts of understanding and its critics, the naturalizing of human understanding, conceiving of the limits of human understanding, British innatism and the critique of empiricist conceptions of the understanding, and reconceiving the understanding and the elimination of scepticism. Authors discussed include Richard Price, James Harris, Zachary Mayne, Edward (...) Bentham, Isaac Watts, Dugald Stewart, John Norris—as well as Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Reid. (shrink)

In Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke argues for an extreme form of meaning scepticism. One influential reply to Kripke’s arguments was developed by David Lewis. The reply developed by Lewis makes use of the notion of mind-independent relations of similarity and difference. The aim of the paper is to argue that Lewis’ reply is not satisfactory: the challenge to find a refutation of Kripke’s sceptical arguments remains unmet.

This paper replies to Peter Millican (Mind, 2009), who argues that Hume denies the possible existence of causal powers which underlie the regularities that we observe in nature. I argue that Hume's own philosophical views on causal power cannot be considered apart from his mitigated skepticism. His account of the origin of the idea of causal power, which traces it to a subjective impression, only leads to what he calls ‘Pyrrhonian scepticism’. He holds that we can only escape such excessive (...) skepticism by way of a natural judgment based on the association of ideas, which forms the basis of what he calls ‘a legitimate ground of Assent’. (shrink)

One possible challenge for epiphenomenalism arises from the theory of evolution: if the mental has no causal powers, how might it have evolved? The aim of this paper is to argue that, contrary to some arguments advanced by other philosophers, most particularly William Robinson and Joseph Corabi, considerations from the theory of evolution do pose a genuine difficulty for epiphenomenalism.

In this paper I show how what came to be known as “the double law of habit,” first formulated by Joseph Butler in a discussion of moral psychology in 1736, was taken up and developed by medical physiologists William Porterfield, Robert Whytt, and William Cullen as they disputed fundamental questions regarding the influence of the mind on the body, the possibility of unconscious mental processes, and the nature and extent of voluntary action. The paper shows, on a particular topic, the (...) overlap between eighteenth-century philosophical writings on the science of human nature on the one hand,and medical writings and lectures in physiology on the other. Other early modern writers discussed in the paper include René Descartes, Herman Boerhaave and David Hume. (shrink)