Nicholas Agar argues that it is possible, and even likely, that radically enhanced human beings will turn out to be ‘post-persons’, that is, beings with a moral status higher than that of mere persons such as us.1 This would mean that they will be morally justified in sacrificing our lives and well-being not merely in cases of emergency, but also in cases of ‘supreme opportunities’ , that is, whenever such a sacrifice leads to ‘significant benefits for post-persons’. For this (...) reason, Agar believes, it would be morally wrong to allow any cognitive enhancement of people that might entail the risk of moral status enhancement.However, neither are there sufficient grounds to expect radically enhanced human beings to have a higher moral status than unenhanced human beings, nor would it, even if they did, be morally wrong to bring about their existence. We use moral status ascriptions mostly as a convenient shorthand to indicate a difference in capacities that strikes us as morally relevant. Rocks have zero moral status because they cannot feel or think, so we cannot hurt or kill them. Whatever we do to them, it does not affect them. Animals, on the other hand, …. (shrink)

The aging of attentional and emotional functions has been extensively studied but relatively independently. Therefore, the relationships between aging and the interactions of attentional and emotional processes remain elusive. This study aimed to determine how age affected the interactions between attentional and emotional processes during adulthood. One-hundred forty adults aged 18–79 performed the emotional variant of the Attention Network Test, which probed alerting, orienting, and executive control in the presence and absence of threatening faces. During this task, contexts with varying (...) levels of task preparatory processes were created to modulate the effect of threatening faces on attention, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to examine the neural underpinnings of the behavioural effects. The behavioural results showed that aging was associated with a significant decline in alerting efficiency, and there was a statistical trend for age-related deficits in executive control. Despite these age differences, age did not significantly moderate the interactions among attentional networks or between attention and emotion. Additionally, the fNIRS results showed that decreased frontal cortex functioning might underlie the age-related decline in executive control. Therefore, while aging has varying effects on different attentional networks, the interactions of attentional and emotional processes remain relatively unaffected by age. (shrink)

Wedin addresses the debate over whether nonsubstantial individuals, that inhere in a subject but are not said of a subject, i.e. accidents, such as the pallor of Socrates, are nonrecurring particulars or a kind of determinate universal. Wedin examines the secondary literature on this topic and divides it into two schools of thought, determined by the contributions of J.L. Ackrill and G.E.L. Owen. According to Ackrill, individuals in non‐substance categories are particular to the substance they are in; Owen critiques Ackrill's (...) view, and proposes that these items can recur in more than one subject and hence are a sort of universal. Wedin finds Owen's thesis unsatisfactory, even after supplementing it with an improved version due to Michael Frede; instead, Wedin argues for a revised version of Ackrill's interpretation of nonsubstantial individuals as nonrecurrent particulars. According to Wedin, Aristotle is committed to individuals only—e.g. to Socrates and to the particular bit of pallor in him: this conclusion has an important bearing on the ontological status of individuals and on the primacy of substance to nonsubstantial items. (shrink)

Wedin considers the problem of the compatibility of the Categories account of primary substance with the theory of substantial form of the Metaphysics. Wedin collects from the secondary literature the most important arguments for incompatibilism, and offers some proposals for restoring their harmony. While admitting the evident differences in the way Aristotle treats the question of substance in each treatise, Wedin is keen to argue that these differences are not sufficient to conclude that the treatises are incompatible. Wedin singles out (...) for particular attention, and criticism, Michael Frede and Gunther Patzig's account of Metaphysics Zeta, according to which the primary substance of the Metaphysics and the basic subject of predications is the form. Wedin considers two ‘philosophical’ arguments and one ‘Aristotelian’ argument for the subjecthood of forms, and argues that the textual evidence does not support the claim that form is the subject of accidents. (shrink)

People from one cultural background often find themselves wondering how those from a different cultural background could willingly live the way they do and/or criticize others for living in the way they do. How are we to explain this kind of mutual incomprehension? Three different possible explanations will be considered. The first is that such mutual incomprehension is sourced in a moral flaw. The flaw might be in one of the cultures, as certain cultures might be premised on a moral (...) mistake. Alternatively, the flaw might be a feature of the incomprehending individuals. If only they tried harder, they would come to appreciate the other’s point of view. The second possibility is that such mutual incomprehension is the product of principled limits on the interpretation of someone from another culture. Contrary to the first possibility, there might be no way for people from different cultures to even understand each other, let alone find fault in each other, because the culturally mediated ways in which they understand the world are inaccessible to each other. The third possibility is that the mutual incomprehension is sourced in metaphysics. Contrary to the second possibility, there might be some non-metaphorical sense in which people from different cultures inhabit different worlds. The main task of the chapter is to describe and evaluate these three possibilities with a view to ruling out the third. (shrink)

Wedin considers the relation between the ontological commitment in the Categories and the semantical theory of underlying ontological configurations for standard categorical statements. According to Wedin, Aristotle's fourfold division of beings, which divides things according to whether they are, or are not, said of, and/or present in a subject, is a meta‐ontology that is concerned with beings per se, i.e. the fundamental things that are. Wedin explains that the primacy of c‐substance involves an asymmetry in the relation between c‐substance and (...) everything else, or between the substantial and the nonsubstantial. This is because there is an ontological dependence of non‐substances, and also of secondary substances, on substances: everything is either said of, or in, primary substance. The argument of this chapter, then, is that the world of the Categories is a world of individuals: all ontological relations needed for semantics can be accommodated by appeal to individuals only. (shrink)

Wedin argues that Aristotle makes form the substance of c‐substances because it is the essence of the c‐substance. Much of this chapter consists of a careful examination of a passage in Metaphysics Zeta 4, which Wedin calls the ‘New Primacy Passage’, that is crucial to Wedin's overall thesis, because here Aristotle appeals to a notion of definitional primacy, as opposed to the ontological primacy of the Categories. Z.4 focuses on this claim that form must be essence: Wedin argues that essence (...) is a certain kind of form, a form of a genus ; this does not mean ‘species’, as some commentators have thought. This is because the species is a combination of form and matter, whereas the genous eidos, Wedin argues, is the formal part only of the definition that applies to the thing. On Wedin's account, Aristotle introduces the notion of explanatory primacy of form in Z.4. (shrink)

Wedin offers an interpretation of Metaphysics Zeta 13, a very important and difficult chapter, where Aristotle apparently denies that substance is a universal, having, on most accounts, already claimed that form is substance, and that form is a universal. This interpretation of the argument of Z.13, Wedin argues, threatens the possibility of attaining a definition of substance, and places in doubt what has gone before in the treatise. According to Wedin, what Aristotle is concerned with in Z.13 is not the (...) denial that substance is a universal but rather with the denial that anything predicated universally of a c‐substance is the substance‐of the c‐substance, which Wedin calls ‘Weak proscription’. In Wedin's account of Z.13, then, Aristotle is continuing to pursue issues first raised in Z.10–11 that have to do with the relations between form and definition, and form and the universal. Wedin also argues that the dilemma at the conclusion of Z.13, regarding the definability of substance, is resolved in Z.16, with the notion of ‘Dual Complexity’, according to which the parts of a form exist potentially in the form, just as the parts of the c‐substance exist potentially in the c‐substance. (shrink)

Wedin discusses Aristotle's claims in Metaphysics Zeta 6 that the essence of a thing is to be sought among its per se attributes, and that each thing that is primary and spoken of per se, e.g. primary substance, is the same as its essence. Wedin argues that the Zeta 6 Thesis, i.e. that the essence of a thing is the thing's immediate essence, is a crucial requirement of the explanatory role of essence as the substance of c‐substances. According to Wedin, (...) Aristotle introduces this requirement in order to establish that a thing's essence cannot depend on another essence. Form must be the essence; if form cannot explain the nature of the thing of which it is the form, there would be the threat of a regress of explanatory forms. At the end of the chapter, Wedin considers the problem that the identity of a thing and its essence is a requirement that can be met by non‐substance items, but he denies that this leads to a dilution of the conception of substance. (shrink)

Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu1 warn of our destruction by the cognitively enhanced beings we create. Now, in a fascinating paper, Nicholas Agar2 warns of an even more disturbing prospect: cognitively enhanced beings may be entitled to sacrifice us for their own ends. These post-humans would likely conclude that they had higher moral status than we mere human beings, and we would have good reason to defer to their vastly superior moral knowledge. We would lack even the consolation of moral (...) complaint.I will question both these claims: that we would have good reason to accept the conclusion of cognitively enhanced beings that they had superior moral status, and that they would be likely to reach such a conclusion . I will also question whether, if they were to have higher moral status, it would be wrong to create them, because it would be wrong to create beings with such costly needs.Agar argues that moral truths, including those about moral status, are like mathematical truths in eventually yielding to expert reasoning. This belief in moral enlightenment is extreme even for a moral realist. Michael Smith,3 whom Agar cites, merely adduces the gradual consensus that has emerged about issues that were once the subject of seemingly intractable disagreement: slavery, workers’ and women's rights and democracy. One may agree with Smith about slow, halting, moral progress, …. (shrink)

This introduction treats the field of ethics in a new way. The main topic is normative ethics and in particular the ethics of moral right and wrong, and the emphasis is on the recently highlighted division or conflict between ethical rationalism and moral sentimentalism. Rationalism treats moral judgment and motivation as a matter of rational judgment, and its main practitioners have been Immanuel Kant and, more recently, the intuitionists H. A. Prichard and W. D. Ross. Philosophical weaknesses in intuitionism have (...) led recent rationalists to follow Kant's transcendental form of deontology, and this leads us to an examination of the Kant-influenced work of John Rawls and of his followers T. M. Scanlon and Stephen Darwall. After a critical examination of ethical rationalism, the book proceeds to consider the sentimentalist tradition, which goes all the way back to the Chinese philosopher Mencius and is more recently instanced in the writings of the eighteenth-century sentimentalist David Hume and in the work of feminist thinker Carol Gilligan. The sentimentalist tradition has potential strengths that have not been fully appreciated, and the book dwells on these. But it then goes on to show how Chinese thought in general offers a large philosophical context in which to make better sense of moral sentimentalism and of recent debates in normative ethics. (shrink)

Utilitarianism does best to approach justice, rationality, and various virtues in symmetric and impartialist fashion. A scalar form of utilitarianism that makes only comparative judgments of better and worse may be preferable for abstract theoretical purposes, though not in practice.

Utilitarianism is also underdetermined as a theory. It must be stated either in actualist form or in some sort of expectabilist terms. But neither choice seems preferable to the other, and this makes it difficult to settle on and defend any particular version of utilitarianism.

The value of personal relationships and of political involvement can be understood in virtue‐ethical terms, but it is not clear that a good friend who prefers his friends is morally superior to someone who is always impartial.

Just like commonsense morality, commonsense virtue ethics faces complicated issues about luck. However, if luck plays a role in our development of virtuous or vicious traits of character, then we can evaluate such traits in virtue‐ethical terms without blaming or condemning those, e.g., whom we wish, in favored terms, to criticize. This approach is very reminiscent of Spinoza.

Virtue ethics allows general rules, and these can cover both perfect and imperfect duties in Kant's sense – though the concepts used are not the specifically moral notions of rightness and wrongness, but rather such notions as what is admirable/deplorable or counts as a virtue/vice.

In commonsense terms, many traits count as virtues independently of the benefit they bring their possessors or others. For example, the courage to face the fact that one has cancer may actually make things less pleasant for both the cancer victim and his/her friends and relations. In addition, many virtuous traits have both self‐regarding and other‐regarding versions: e.g. honesty, loyalty, and trustworthiness. A commonsense virtue ethics makes use of that fact to underscore the significance and plausibility of its self‐other symmetric (...) approach to ethical theory. (shrink)

Aristotelian virtue ethics does not treat motives or even character as the grounding basis for the rest of ethics, but the present agent‐based approach does. However, there are objections to agent‐basing that need to be considered. Having answered those objections, the chapter discusses three major forms of agent‐based virtue ethics: a somewhat less than plausible ”morality as inner strength” ; ”morality as universal benevolence” ; and ”morality as caring”. Any agent‐based morality does well to treat overall motivation, rather than occasional (...) single motives, as the fundamental basis for ethical characterizations. (shrink)

Even though commonsense virtue ethics is less unified than utilitarianism, various forms of pluralism are inherent in utilitarianism.

Kantian and commonsense moral thinking are incoherent because self‐other asymmetry does not cogently combine with the belief that we owe more to people the closer they are to us in familial or personal terms. The latter is commonsensically explained by the claim that it is natural or inevitable that we should care about those closer to us more than about those less close to us, but this seemingly plausible assumption tends to undercut the justification that is typically and intuitively offered (...) for self‐other asymmetry, namely, that we naturally care more about ourselves than about others, so that there is no need to assume any duty to avoid harming oneself. A commonsense ethics of virtue avoids this and other incoherences or tensions in Kantian and commonsense moral thinking. (shrink)

Commonsense views about practical rationality are self‐other asymmetric in a way diametrically opposed to the asymmetry involved in commonsense or Kantian morality. What is likely to harm others does not count as irrational in the same fundamental way that what is likely to harm oneself does. Commonsense or Kantian morality is agent sacrificingly asymmetrical, whereas commonsense rationality is agent favouringly asymmetrical. This means that these two parts of ordinary thinking tug in opposite directions, but a virtue‐ethical approach that focuses exclusively (...) on commonsense thinking about what is admirable or counts as a virtue lacks this sort of tension, and such greater unity counts in its favor. (shrink)

Virtue ethics treats aretaic, as opposed to deontic, concepts as fundamental and focuses in the first instance on character traits or motives rather than actions. Virtue ethics also contrasts with utilitarianism because although both these approaches are self‐other symmetric, they embrace different forms of symmetry. Utilitarianism holds that one's concern for oneself should be no different, fundamentally, from the concern one has for each and every other individual. But such ”in sensu diviso” symmetry differs from an ”in sensu composito” symmetry (...) that would have us be equally concerned with ourselves and with others considered as a class. Commonsense virtue ethics subscribes to the latter kind of symmetry because of the way in which it gives equal or nearly equal weight to both self‐benefiting and other‐benefiting virtues. (shrink)

Plural and conflicting values are often held to be conceptually problematic, threatening the very possibility of ethics, or at least rational ethics. Rejecting this view, Stocker first demonstrates why it is so important to understand the issues raised by plural and conflicting values, focusing on Aristotle's treatment of them. He then shows that plurality and conflict are commonplace and generally unproblematic features of our everyday choice and action, and that they do allow for a sound and rational ethics.

This paper argues that Moore’s principle of organic unities is false. Advocates of the principle have failed to take note of the distinction between actual intrinsic value and virtual intrinsic value. Purported cases of organic unities, where the actual intrinsic value of a part of a whole is allegedly defeated by the actual intrinsic value of the whole itself, are more plausibly seen as cases where the part in question has no actual intrinsic value but instead a plurality of merely (...) virtual intrinsic values. (shrink)

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, alter (...) the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

Ce texte a déjà paru dans Temps zéro, nº 1, 2007. Nous remercions Michael Sheringham de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Résumé : Si l'expérience de la quotidienneté, qui préoccupe un philosophe comme Henri Lefebvre ou un écrivain comme Georges Perec, semble résister à l'emprise du roman, Michel de Certeau a pu mettre une réflexion sur le récit au cœur de son essai fondamental, L'invention du quotidien. En effet, les notions de « récits délinquants » ou d'« (...) énonciations piétonnières », chez Certeau, (...) - Poétique et Études littéraires – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)