In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive (...) ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position. (shrink)

Peirce's Sign Theory, or Semiotic, is an account of signification, representation, reference and meaning. Although sign theories have a long history, Peirce's accounts are distinctive and innovative for their breadth and complexity, and for capturing the importance of interpretation to signification. For Peirce, developing a thoroughgoing theory of signs was a central philosophical and intellectual preoccupation. The importance of semiotic for Peirce is wide ranging. As he himself said, “[…] it has never been in my power to study anything,—mathematics, ethics, (...) metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics, the history of science, whist, men and women, wine, metrology, except as a study of semiotic”. (SS 1977, 85–6). Peirce also treated sign theory as central to his work on logic, as the medium for inquiry and the process of scientific discovery, and even as one possible means for 'proving' his pragmatism. Its importance in Peirce's philosophy, then, cannot be underestimated. -/- Across the course of his intellectual life, Peirce continually returned to and developed his ideas about signs and semiotic and there are three broadly delineable accounts: a concise Early Account from the 1860s; a complete and relatively neat Interim Account developed through the 1880s and 1890s and presented in 1903; and his speculative, rambling, and incomplete Final Account developed between 1906 and 1910. The following entry examines these three accounts, and traces the changes that led Peirce to develop earlier accounts and generate new, more complex, sign theories. However, despite these changes, Peirce's ideas on the basic structure of signs and signification remain largely uniform throughout his developments. Consequently, it is useful to begin with an account of the basic structure of signs according to Peirce. (shrink)

For the last century, moral philosophy has stressed theory for the analysis of moral argument and concepts. In the last decade, interest in the ethical issues of health care has stimulated attention to cases and particular instances. This has revealed the gap between ethical theory and practice. This article reviews the history and method of casuistry which for many centuries provided an approach to practical ethics. Its strengths and weaknesses are noted and its potential for contemporary use explored.

There is an ongoing debate in animalethics on the meaning and scope of animalwelfare. In certain broader views, leading anatural life through the development of naturalcapabilities is also headed under the conceptof animal welfare. I argue that a concern forthe development of natural capabilities of ananimal such as expressed when living freelyshould be distinguished from the preservationof the naturalness of its behavior andappearance. However, it is not always clearwhere a plea for natural living changes overinto a plea for the preservation (...) of theirnaturalness or wildness. In the first part ofthis article, I examine to what extent theconcerns for natural living meet ``theexperience requirement.'' I conclude that someof these concerns go beyond welfare. In thesecond part of the article. I ask whether wehave moral reasons to respect concernsfor the naturalness of an animal's living thattranscend its welfare. I argue that the moralrelevance of such considerations can be graspedwhen we see animals as entities bearingnon-moral intrinsic values. In my view the``natural'' appearance and behavior of an animalmay embody intrinsic values. Caring for ananimal's naturalness should then be understoodas caring for such intrinsic values. Intrinsicvalues provide moral reasons for action iffthey are seen as constitutive of the good lifefor humans. I conclude by reinterpreting,within the framework of a perfectionist ethicaltheory, the notion of indirect dutiesregarding animals, which go beyond andsupplement the direct duties towardsanimals. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze and reject two versions of the content‐argument against animal beliefs, namely, the ontological argument from Davidson and the epistemological argument from Stich. One of the main defects of the strongest version of the argument is that it over‐intellectualizes belief ascriptions in humans and thus sets the comparative bar for belief ascriptions in animals too high. In the second part of the article, we develop a gradualist notion of belief which captures basic beliefs as well as (...) Davidsonian linguistic beliefs, and we specify the conditions under which belief ascriptions to nonlinguistic animals are justified. (shrink)

This paper reviews the argument by Peter Singer that speciesism, the exploitation of other species without regard for their interests, is as morally objectionable as racism and sexism. Objections to this argument by philosophers such as Peter Carruthers, Mary Midgley, and Cora Diamond as well as conventional wisdom about notions of species differences are presented and critically examined. I conclude that Alaine Locke would have supported Singer's expansion of the moral circle.

At any given time, an individual has certain beliefs and certain procedures or methods for modifying those beliefs. In The Realm of Reason, as in his previous book, Being Known (1999), Christopher Peacocke is concerned with the elusive question of what it is for someone to be “entitled” to a given belief or procedure.1..

The famous first aphorism of Hippocrates, "Life is short, the art is long" was long considered a perfect summary of medical ethics. Modern physicians find the words impossible to understand. But it can be interpreted as a fundamental insight into the ethical problems of modern medicine. The technology of modern scientific medicine can sustain life, even when life is losing its vitality. How should decisions be made about the use of technology and by whom? This is the incessant question of (...) modern medical ethics. (shrink)

Research into consciousness has now become respectable, and much has been written about it. Is consciousness the exclusive property of human beings, or can it be found also in animals? Can machines become conscious? Is consciousness an illusion, and are all mental states ultimately reducible to the movement of molecules? If consciousness is other than matter, what connection does it have with matter? These and others like them are now serious scientific questions in the West. This article discusses consciousness within (...) the frame of the following assertions: Consciousness has evolved from earlier states of awareness to be found in lower forms of life. The current scientific method is too restrictive for the study of conscience and its evolution. In particular classical logic leads scientists to ignore or reject consciousness as a legitimate field of study. Mind and matter, generalized as knowing and being, have equal status. (shrink)

This paper reviews the major approaches taken to African philosophy during the 20th century: etnophilosophical, universalist, and hermeneutical. It elaborates and evaluates criticisms of ethnophilosophy by universalists (Hountoundji, Wiredu, Appiah) and hermeneuticists (Serequeberhan) and proposes an orientation for African philosophy in the new millennium that incorporates a revised version of the ethnophilosophical program. This paper also elucidates the connection between ethnophilosophy in African philosophy and similar developments in African-American and feminist philosophy.

This paper presents a non-reductionist framework of eight nested modes of evolution that have successively emerged to organize the reproduction of all organisms, from the blue-green algae to our societies. The processes of biological, "Darwinian," evolution are those of drift during reproduction, and of selection. The key unit of evolutionary time is the generation, and its locus is the organisms' life-cycle setup. Different life-cycle setups support different mechanisms of reproduction, and therefore different modes of evolution. By tracing the different life-cycle (...) setups attested throughout Life's History, we are able to characterize the successive modes of evolution with which they are associated. The present attempt has led to a characterization of the following eight nested modes of evolution: Basic; Reptilian; Archaic Mammalian; Progressive Mammalian; Socio-cultural; Extrasomatically Enhanced Socio-cultural; Tinkering; and finally Para-biological. These successively emerging modes govern a progressively reduced number of life-forms. The first four modes are "Darwinian" in the strict sense. The fifth, or socio-cultural mode, which governs whale and elephant societies in addition to hominoids, is already not "Darwinian" in the traditional sense. The last three modes have emerged with the genus homo, through the progressive extension of its life-cycle setups. The present framework is to be used heuristically, as a prism with which to separate the evolutionary spectrum of the constituent elements of human behavior. An example of such a behavioral evolutionary spectrum is presented in the conclusion, and is used to compare the present framework with those recently proposed by Maynard Smith and Szathmáry and by Foley. (shrink)

Dynamic Predicate Logic (DPL) is a variant of Predicate Logic introduced by Groenendijk and Stokhof. One rationale behind the introduction of DPL is that it is closer to Natural Language than ordinary Predicate Logic in the way it treats scope.In this paper I develop some variants of DPL that can more easily approximate Natural Language in some further aspects. Specifically I add flexibility in the treatment of polarity and and some further flexibility in the treatment of scope.I develop a framework (...) that is intended to encourage further experimentation with alternative variants of DPL. In this framework the new meanings are, roughly,indexed sets of old meanings. The indices can be viewed as "files'' or "storage devices.''Each such file supports a separate "information stream.''The interaction of the new meanings is "programmed'' with the help of certain monoids acting on the indices. The construction of the new meanings can be viewed as an application of the Grothendieck Construction to monoids. (shrink)

For the most part, this paper is an attempt to understand such a statement as this: “The proposition represents the fact by virtue of a structural identity between it and the fact.” The statement is a familiar and important one in modern philosophy. It is, for example, one of the tenets of Logical Positivism.

In this paper, I critically assess different interpretations of Bohmian mechanics that are not committed to an ontology based on the wave function being an actual physical object that inhabits configuration space. More specifically, my aim is to explore the connection between the denial of configuration space realism and another interpretive debate that is specific to Bohmian mechanics: the quantum potential versus guidance approaches. Whereas defenders of the quantum potential approach to the theory claim that Bohmian mechanics is better formulated (...) as quasi-Newtonian, via the postulation of forces proportional to acceleration; advocates of the guidance approach defend the notion that the theory is essentially first-order and incorporates some concepts akin to those of Aristotelian physics. Here I analyze whether the desideratum of an interpretation of Bohmian mechanics that is both explanatorily adequate and not committed to configuration space realism favors one of these two approaches to the theory over the other. Contrary to some recent claims in the literature, I argue that the quasi-Newtonian approach based on the idea of a quantum potential does not come out the winner. (shrink)

« Qu'est-ce qu'un homme révolté? Un homme qui dit non. Mais s'il refuse, il ne renonce pas : c'est aussi un homme qui dit oui, dès son premier mouvement. »[réf. nécessaire] D'apparence, il existe une limite à la révolte. Cependant, la révolte est un droit. La révolte naît de la perte de patience. Elle est un mouvement et se situe donc dans l'agir. Elle se définit par le « Tout ou Rien », le « Tous ou Personne ». En premier, (...) elle soumet l'idée d'égalité : position d'égal à égal entre le maître et l'esclave. Mais le révolté finit par imposer cette égalité qui se traduit souvent par une inversion des rôles (dialectique hégélienne). Suivant le raisonnement de Scheler, l'homme révolté n'est pas l'homme du ressentiment, c'est-à-dire qu'il ne baigne ni dans la haine ni dans le mépris. La révolte enfante des valeurs. De fait, « pour être, l'homme doit se révolter ». La révolte extirpe l'homme de la solitude puisqu'elle est collective, c'est l'« aventure de tous ». Néanmoins, faire l'expérience de la révolte, c'est faire l'expérience de l'ascèse. Les mythes de Prométhée, d'Achille (avec Patrocle), d'OEdipe et d'Antigone, sont des archétypes de révoltes antiques au même titre que la révolte de Spartacus. La révolte est souvent légitime, elle est l'expression la plus pure de la liberté et semble revêtir le visage de l'espoir. De surcroît, la révolte impose une tension, elle refuse donc formellement le confort de la tyrannie ou de la servitude. Le révolutionnaire a la volonté de « transformer le monde » (Marx) alors que le révolté veut « changer la vie » (Rimbaud). (shrink)

In this paper we study proofs of some general forms of the Second Incompleteness Theorem. These forms conform to the Feferman format, where the proof predicate is fixed and the representation of the set of axioms varies. We extend the Feferman framework in one important point: we allow the interpretation of number theory to vary.

E. J. Lowe offers an account of modal knowledge that involves two primary theses. First, the basis of modal knowledge is essential knowledge, and the source of essential knowledge is grasp of essence. Second, all empirical knowledge ultimately depends on some modal knowledge. This article assesses Lowe’s account and defends four conclusions. First, there is a tension in Lowe’s account of grasp of essence; it wavers between an undemanding version, which holds that grasp of essence requires no more than our (...) ordinary understanding of propositions, and a more demanding version, which holds that it requires rational insight into necessary relationships between essences. Second, both versions face serious challenges. Third, Lowe’s account of knowledge of essence does not provide a basis for modal knowledge. Fourth, Lowe’s supporting argument for his second thesis contains two significant gaps and the principles necessary to close the gaps reveal further tensions in his epistemological views. (shrink)

By building on work by Kit Fine, we develop a sound and complete truthmaker semantics for Lou Goble’s conflict tolerant deontic logic BDL.

By turns historical, sociological and autobiographical, this book investigates racism as social pathology - a cultural disease that prevails because it allows one segment of society to empower itself at the expense of another.

L'absurde, le suicide, etc. Premier essai philosophique (1942) de l'auteur. Indispensable (ou presque) à tout apprenti philosophe.

Pierce challenges the argument that economic sanctions are always morally preferable to the use of military force. He argues that such sanctions inflict suffering and physical harm on noncombatants and that small-scale military operations are sometimes preferable.

Modern Social Contract Theory provides an exposition and evaluation of major work in social contract theory from 1950 to the present. It locates the central themes of that theory in the intellectual legacy of utilitarianism, particularly the problems of defining principles of justice and of showing the grounds of moral obligation. It demonstrates how theorists responded in a novel way to the dilemmas articulated in utilitarianism, developing in their different approaches a constructivist method in ethics, a method that aimed to (...) vindicate a liberal, democratic and just political order. A distinctive feature of the book is its comparative approach. By placing the works of Barry, Buchanan and Tullock, Harsanyi, Gauthier, Grice, Rawls, and Scanlon alongside one another, similarities and differences are brought out, most notably in the way in which principles are derived by each author from the contractual construction as well as the extent to which the obligation to adopt those principles can be rationally grounded. Each theory is placed in its particular intellectual context. Special attention is paid to the contrasting theories of rationality adopted by the different authors, whether that be utility theory or a deliberative conception of rationality, with the intention of assessing how far the principles advanced can be justified by reference to the hypothetical choices of rational contracting agents. The book concludes with a discussion of some principal objections to the enterprise of contract theory, and offers its own programme for the future of that theory taking the form of the empirical method. (shrink)

We live in the anthropocene, the era of global warming. How are Americans responding to this predicament? To answer the question we need a philosophical concept of a collective mood and then empirical support to make it concrete. The result is a collective ground state. It has gone through the stages of confident prosperity, the dissolution of that confidence, the present state of anxious disorientation, and the hopeful prospect of grounded responsibility.

The Internet has become a field of dragon teeth for a person’s identity. It has made it possible for your identity to be mistaken by a credit agency, spied on by the government, foolishly exposed by yourself, pilloried by an enemy, pounded by a bully, or stolen by a criminal. These harms to one’s integrity could be inflicted in the past, but information technology has multiplied and aggravated such injuries. They have not gone unnoticed and are widely bemoaned and discussed. (...) The government and private watchdogs are working to protect the identity of citizens though at least in the United States both the government and individuals all too often side with prosperity when it conflicts with privacy. Still, these information-technological threats to identity have been recognized and can be reasonably met through legislation, regulation, and discretion. There is another kind of danger to our identity that is more difficult to define and to meet, for it has no familiar predecessors, has no criminal aspects, and exhibits no sharp moral or cultural contours. Still that threat to our identity haunts us constantly and surfaces occasionally in conversations and the media. It makes us feel displaced, distracted, and fragmented at the very times when to all appearances we seem to be connected, busy, and energetic. At the same time, the culture of technology, and of information technology particularly, has opened up fields of diversity and contingency that invite us to comprehend our identities in newly responsible, intricate, and open-minded ways. (shrink)

What does it look like when an organization tentatively steps away from an exclusively rules-based regime and begins to attend to both rules and principles? What insights and guidance can ethicists and ethical theory offer? This paper is a case study of an organization that has initiated such a transition. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has begun a turn toward the promotion of ethical principles and best practices by adding a “conceptual framework” to its existing Code of Professional (...) Conduct. This conceptual framework calls upon its members to intentionally increase their awareness of significant threats to their compliance with its rules of conduct and to establish safeguards to offset or eliminate those threats. To this end, each member is required to regard every questionable situation, circumstance, transaction or relationship by attempting to view it through the eyes of an imagined reasonable third party. This paper examines this protocol theoretically and practically. First, we frame this analysis within the principles and ethical concepts that inform the professional ethics of accountants. Second, we critique the AICPA’s long-standing rules-based approach to its Code. Third, we examine the new conceptual framework with a view toward its potential for the promotion of a more principles-based approach to the professional ethics of the accounting profession. Fourth, we give attention to the notion of the “reasonable and informed third party,” which has been embedded in the new conceptual framework, and consider how two schools of thought—Adam Smith’s modernist “impartial spectator” concept and Emmanuel Lévinas’ postmodern phenomenology in regard to “the Other”—may offer theoretical support and clarity for this epistemic exercise. Finally, we point out several ways in which the AICPA’s commitment to its new conceptual framework could be strengthened and enhanced. (shrink)