The Renaissance of Prudential Psychology Philosophical reflection on the good life in coming decades will likely owe a tremendous debt to the burgeoning science of subjective well-being and the pioneers, like Ed Diener, who brought it to fruition. While the psychological dimensions of human welfare now occupy a prominent position in the social sciences, they have gotten surprisingly little attention in the recent philosophical literature. The situation appears to be changing, however, as philosophers inspired by the empirical research begin to (...) examine more seriously the psychology of human flourishing. This is not to say that the philosophers of any era have kept entirely silent about such matters. While the term ‘subjective well-being’ has yet to take a significant place in the philosophical lexicon, philosophers have always evinced some interest in the subjective or psychological dimensions of human welfare, and sometimes quite a lot. Philosophical work on the good life has traditionally been the province of ethical theory, which may be understood broadly to include all aspects of value theory. Ethics in this broad sense is one of three main branches of philosophical inquiry, alongside metaphysics and epistemology. Philosophers sometimes use ‘ethics’ more narrowly, as a synonym for ‘morality’ or ‘moral theory’. But ethical theorists frequently claim to be in the business of trying to answer Socrates’ question: how ought one to live? And this question ranges well beyond matters of right and wrong, dealing also with matters of well-being, flourishing, welfare, eudaimonia, or pruden- tial value. There is some dispute about the precise equivalence of these expressions, which carry differing connotations. But all seem to concern the same cluster of issues: what benefits a person, is in her interest, or makes a person’s life go best for her. Thus contemporary theories of “wellbeing” or “welfare” appear to be direct competitors to ancient theories of “eudaimonia.” It can be useful, then, to employ these expressions interchangeably, whether or not they are strictly synonymous.. (shrink)

In this article, I derive a weak version of Kant's categorical imperative within an informal game-theoretic framework. More specifically, I argue that Hobbesian agents would choose what I call the weak principle of universalization, if they had to decide on a rule of conflict resolution in an idealized but empirically defensible hypothetical decision situation. The discussion clarifies (i) the rationality requirements imposed on agents, (ii) the empirical conditions assumed to warrant the conclusion, and (iii) the political institutions that are necessary (...) to implement the derived principle. The analysis demonstrates the moral significance of the weak principle of universalization and its epistemic advantage over the categorical imperative. (shrink)

La sombra del Supremo se adentra en la única contingencia que Occidente no puede admitir: que el engaño provenga de Dios. No ya del artero enemigo que tras la caída de Lucifer campa por la tierra, tampoco del azar o la necesidad, ni siquiera de la naturaleza oculta tras los fenómenos, sino directa y llanamente de la Causa Primera: de la voluntad original del Hacedor. Desde el Deus Prudens o Dios Sabio que por compasión oculta la verdad a los humanos (...) al Creador que finge el mundo con un bostezo provocado por el tedio de su soledad; desde el Yahveh que envía al diablo o la serpiente para que engañe a sus criaturas con sutiles celadas al Theos Agnostos o Dios Desconocido que permite al demiurgo levantar un universo infame, la falsedad del mundo sería solo la sombra inevitable del Supremo. (shrink)

The narrow limits of the apparatus criticus in the new Clarendon Press edition have excluded these suggestions, which may find a place here:I xxix, 4 Quaedam etiam facta sunt ex nominum deriuatione, ut a prudentia ‘prudens ’; quaedam etiam ex uocibus, ut a garrulitate ‘garrulus.’ Although garrulus is the traditional reading, the derivation elsewhere of garrulus from graculus, ‘a jackdaw,’ suggests that we may read here ut a garrulitate ‘graulus.’ For the jackdaw's name in Late Latin developed from gragulus to (...) graulus. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an interpretation of the latitude of wide duties by analyzing Kant’s reinterpretation of Horace’s adage insani sapiens nomen habeat; aequus iniqui - ultra quam satis est virtutem si petat ipsam (the wise man has the name of being a fool, the just man of being iniquitous, if he seeks virtue beyond what is sufficient”, MS VI: 404n., 409 and 433n) and his criticism of Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean. In support of my interpretation I also (...) analyze Kant’s distinction between lying and reticence in his correspondence with Maria von Herbert and between openheartedness and reticence in the Religion. I argue that since there is no upper limit to the extent we may realize moral ends it may be morally permissible to take one’s prudential considerations into account when deciding how to comply with wide duties. In contrast, the deliberate disregard of one’s permissible prudential interests may reflect what Kant calls a fantastic conception of virtue, according to which agents vainly believe that they can completely achieve virtue in this life. I call attention to the fact that for Kant the wise (sapiens) is also a prudens, a person who does not think fantastically in matters of virtue and consequently does not attempt to “maximize virtue” at the expense of one’s permissible prudential interests as a finite being. (shrink)