This article undertakes a critical examination of Kwame Gyekye’s main arguments for moderate communitarianism. Contrary to the general belief among African scholars, it contends that Gyekye’s moderate communitarianism, as he presents it in Tradition and Modernity (1997), is not as moderate as he believes it to be. The article also seeks to show that the gap which Gyekye claims exists between moderate or restricted and unrestricted communitarianism is not as wide as he suggests.

Gyekye argues for the moral supremacy of certain duties. The individual is, as a natural member of the cultural community, morally obligated to respect community values; co-operate with fellow community members, be sensitive to the economic plight of others and morally expected to respect the elderly. Though Gyekye recognizes the moral need to respect certain individual rights, in the case of a moral clash between those rights and the values cherished by the community, the latter must be upheld. I wish (...) to critically examine the arguments in support of this position. Contrary to Gyekye's view, I argue that the natural interpersonal bond among members of the same cultural community does not strongly support some of the duties mentioned. However, I am not arguing that the individual person is not morally obligated to the cultural community at all. I argue that natural membership of the cultural community could be a necessary condition for the justification of certain duties; it is not, morally, a sufficient condition. (shrink)

What does the right to life mean? The article considers three interpretations: (i) the right to life as the right to life-sustaining essentials, (ii) the right to life as the right not to be killed,s and (iii) the right to life as the right not to be killed unjustly. The article argues that (i) and (iii) accurately define the human right to life. The primary method is philosophical analysis. The article concludes that the right to life is best defined or (...) interpreted as either the right to life-sustaining goods (material or non-material) or the right not to be killed unjustly. (shrink)

If philosophy is conceived as a method, seeing it beyond the traditional issues it addresses, issues that are not, strictly speaking, peculiar to it, then philosophy need not share the same criteria of relevance with science and technology. The paper argues that the generally held major criteria of relevance – utility, suitability, and social acceptability grounded on human desires and need are not philosophically satisfactory. The paper also argues that the Universalist conception of philosophy is, like science and technology, capable (...) of contributing to human good – material and non- material. The conclusion is that granted that development is basically human, and, derivatively, material then the acquisition of the skills of philosophizing constitutes part of the species of development. The philosophical task of identifying errors (human and non-human) in specific human scientific and technological fields is capable of affecting the material and non-material progress of the contemporary world. (shrink)

The paper contains a philosophically examinesation of the notion of the common good. The major point argued is that the common good, contrary to the way it isits traditionally definedition in political philosophy, need not be communitarian alone, itbut couldan also be liberal. The paper juxtaposes the normative liberal idea of liberty to the communitarian notion of the common good. The conclusion is that the liberal notion of liberty couldan serve the common good, especially in a liberal society. Theis idea (...) of liberal liberty is not antithetical to the common good. (shrink)

On its first appearance in 1960, J.O. Urmson's Concise encyclopedia of Western philosophy and philosophers established itself as a classic. Its contributors included many of the leading philosophers of the English-speaking world: Ryle, Hare, Strawson, Ayer, Dummett, Williams and many others. They wrote with an authority and individuality which made the Encyclopedia into a lively and engaging introduction to philosophy as well as a convenient reference work. For this edition, supervised by Jonathan Rée, the original articles have been revised and (...) updated, and eighty articles by thirty one new authors have been added. The additions take account of recent developments in philosophy, of literary, historical and political issues in philosophy, and of developments in continental thought, including in Marxism, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, post-structuralism and deconstruction. There is a clear, integral cross-referencing system which allows the reader to identify points of overlap between philosophical traditions and their personalities at a glance. (shrink)

Moral philosophers tend to discriminate, explicitly or implicitly, three types of action from the point of view of moral worth. First, they recognize actions that are a duty, or obligatory, or that we ought to perform, treating these terms as approximately synonymous; second, they recognize actions that are right in so far as they are permissible from a moral standpoint and not ruled out by moral considerations, but that are not morally required of us, like the lead of this or (...) that card at bridge; third, they recognize actions that are wrong, that we ought not to do. (shrink)

Philosophical Analysis Its Development between the Two World Wars.

Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is not a counsel to perform mean or moderate actions. It states that excellence of character is a mean state with regard to the having and displaying of emotions. All emotions are morally neutral; character is shown by displaying emotions on the right occasions, Not too often or too rarely, Not too strongly or too weakly, For sufficient and only sufficient reasons, Etc. The difficulties for such a view presented by justice and such bad emotions (...) as envy are discussed. The conclusion is that basically aristotle's theory can resist critical scrutiny. (shrink)

J. O. Urmson; VIII*—A Defence of Intuitionism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 111–120, https://doi.org/10.1093/.

Peter Kivy argues that Handel was the first composer to be regarded as a genius and that only in the eighteenth century was the philosophical apparatus in place that would enable any composer to be conceived of as a musical genius. According to Kivy, a Longinian conception of genius transformed Handel into a genius. A Platonic conception of genius was used to classify Mozart as a genius. Then Kant adopted a Longinian conception of genius and this shaped the perception of (...) Beethoven. Kivy is wrong on all counts. Composers were thought to be geniuses long before Handel. The emergence of philosophical aesthetics in the eighteenth century did little to shape conceptions of musical genius. More specifically, Kivy misrepresents Kant's conception of genius and the role that it plays in the recognition of Beethoven as a musical genius. (shrink)

Instrumentalism is an approach to science that treats a theory as a tool and only as a tool for computation; it dispenses with the concept of truth.Conventionalism treats a theory as true by convention if it forms a pattern of observations from which correct predictions can be made.Operationalism denies meaning to the concepts of a theory unless they can be defined operationally. It is argued in this paper that truth-value is indispensable to science, because a theory can be rejected only (...) if an empirical consequence is false and if falsity of a conclusion entails falsity of a premise. This undermines the above positions. The fourth interpretation isinduction. Induction, by contrast, uses the notion of truth-value. What is focused on here is its reliance on the ultimacy ofobservation. The present thesis is that instrumentalism, conventionalism, and induction are different attempts to handle observations. The common problem is the gap between data and theory.All these interpretations share a philosophy of observationalism. The aim of this paper is to show that the several orthodox interpretations of science all fail to solve the problem of the data-theory gap, and to show that they all presuppose a philosophy of observation. (shrink)

J. O. Urmson; VIII*—A Defence of Intuitionism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 111–120, https://doi.org/10.1093/.

The essays in this volume explore current work in central areas of philosophy, work unified by attention to salient questions of human action and human agency. They ask what it is for humans to act knowledgeably, to use language, to be friends, to act heroically, to be mortally fortunate, and to produce as well as to appreciate art. The volume is dedicated to J. O. Urmson, in recognition of his inspirational contributions to these areas. All the essays but one have (...) been specially written for this volume. (shrink)

Philosophical Analysis Its Development between the Two World Wars.