Dr Ian Ramsey has made considerable use of the word ‘disclosure’ in what he has to say about religion and in his attempts to give an account of the meaning of religious language. He sometimes speaks of ‘discernment’ or ‘insight’ but ‘disclosure’ is the word he normally favours. In what follows I shall ask: what a disclosure is, to what extent Dr Ramsey's use of the notion leads to confusions, and what questions have to be faced in order to resolve (...) these confusions. (shrink)

ethics mostly focuses on what we do. One form of action is a speech act. What we say can have profound effects. We can and should choose our words and how we speak wisely. When someone close to us suffers an injury or serious illness, a duty of beneficence requires that we support that person through beneficial words or actions. Though our intentions are most often benign, by what we say we often make the unfortunate person feel worse. Beginning with (...) two personal accounts, this article explains what can go wrong in the compassionate speech of wellwishers, and uncovers some of the reasons why people say things that are hurtful or harmful. Despite a large body of clinical evidence, there is no perfect strategy for comforting a friend or relative who is ill, and sometimes even the best thing to say can still be perceived as insensitive and hurtful. In some cases, we may have good reason to knowingly say a hurtful or insensitive thing. Saying these ‘wrong’ things can sometimes be the best way to help a person in the long term. To complicate matters, there can be moral reasons for overriding what is good for the patient. What kind of admonishments should we make to a badly behaved patient? What is the value of authenticity in our communication with the people we love? These questions demand an ethical defence of those speech acts which are painful to hear but which need to be said, and of those which go wrong despite the best efforts of the wellwisher. We offer an ethical account, identifying permissible and impermissible justifications for the things we say to a person with a serious injury or illness. (shrink)

We experimentally investigated the influence of context-based biases, such as prestige and popularity, on the preferences for quotations. Participants were presented with random quotes associated to famous or unknown authors, or with random quotes presented as popular, i.e. chosen by many previous participants, or unpopular. To exclude effects related to the content of the quotations, all participants were subsequently presented with the same quotations, again associated to famous and unknown authors, or presented as popular or unpopular. Overall, our results showed (...) that context-based biases had no, or limited, effect in determining participants’ choices. Quotations preferred for their content were preferred in general, despite the contextual cues to which they were associated. We conclude discussing how our results fit with the well-known phenomenon of the spread and success of misattributed quotations, and we draw some more general implications for cultural evolution research. (shrink)

The act of criminalising conduct has been understood by many theorists as a form of communication. This paper proposes a model, based on speech-act theory, for understanding how that act of communication works. In particular, it focuses on analysing how and where wrongfulness can appear in this speech-act, if one were to argue, as many theorists do, that part of what is being communicated through criminalisation is the wrongfulness of the target conduct. I argue that the act of criminalisation is (...) best understood as an indirect speech-act, which both asserts and declares normative facts, the utterance of which makes it the case that a conduct is now criminalised. Within this speech-act, wrongfulness can appear as an implicit assertion of the wrongness of the conduct, which has to be inferred by hearers from the context of utterance. The paper then briefly discusses the upshots of this model, mainly that it allows a clearer picture of how criminalisation conveys meanings, as well as leaving open the question as to whether it makes sense to think that the wrongfulness being conveyed is specifically of a moral kind. (shrink)

Using two experiments, I examine how apologizing for fraud influences investor's avoidance and revenge behavior. Investors in experiment one report how many shares they would sell and how likely they would be to pursue legal punishment after discovering fraud has occurred in an organization they are currently invested in and subsequently reading about management's response to the fraud. I manipulate the nature of fraud as fraudulent financial reporting or asset misappropriation. I also manipulate whether management apologizes, scapegoats responsibility, or remains (...) silent after the fraud. Results show avoidance and revenge behavior is more negative after misreporting fraud. Data suggest that this difference may be partially attributable to the underlying moral norm that is violated. Specifically, misreporting is primarily a moral violation of deception, whereas embezzlement is primarily a moral violation of stealing. Results also show differential investor reactions depending on the type of fraud and management's response. For misreporting, revenge behavior is higher when management apologizes, but there is no effect on avoidance behavior. For embezzlement, avoidance behavior is reduced when the organization apologizes, but revenge behavior is unaffected. In experiment two, I replicate the misreporting condition from experiment one and manipulate apology sincerity. Results show that apology sincerity is positively associated with revenge behavior. Results of these two experiments extend both accounting and trust repair research by emphasizing the importance of disentangling moral integrity-based trust violations and that the adage of "just say you're sorry" is helpful in some situations and harmful in others. (shrink)

“Towards a Theory of Taxation” is a proper theme for an Englishman to take when giving a paper in America. After all it was from the absence of such a theory that the United States derived its existence. The Colonists felt strongly that there should be no taxation without representation, and George III was unable to explain to them convincingly why they should contribute to the cost of their defense. Since that time, understanding has not advanced much. In Britain we (...) still maintain the fiction that taxes are a voluntary gift to the Crown, and taxing statutes are given the Royal Assent with the special formula, “La Reine remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence, et ainsi le veult” instead of the simple “La Reine le veult,” and in the United States taxes have regularly been levied on residents of the District of Columbia who until recently had no representation in Congress, and by the State of New York on those who worked but did not reside in the State, and so did not have a vote. Taxes are regularly levied, in America as elsewhere, on those who have no say on whether they should be levied or how they should be spent. I am taxed by the Federal Government on my American earnings and by state governments on my American spending, but I should be hard put to it to make out that it was unjust. Florida is wondering whether to follow California in taxing multinational corporations on their world-wide earnings. (shrink)

The externalist says that your evidence could fail to tell you what evidence you do or not do have. In that case, it could be rational for you to be uncertain about what your evidence is. This is a kind of uncertainty which orthodox Bayesian epistemology has difficulty modeling. For, if externalism is correct, then the orthodox Bayesian learning norms of conditionalization and reflection are inconsistent with each other. I recommend that an externalist Bayesian reject conditionalization. In its stead, I (...) provide a new theory of rational learning for the externalist. I defend this theory by arguing that its advice will be followed by anyone whose learning dispositions maximize expected accuracy. I then explore some of this theory’s consequences for the rationality of epistemic akrasia, peer disagreement, undercutting defeat, and uncertain evidence. (shrink)

I provide a theory of causation within the causal modeling framework. In contrast to most of its predecessors, this theory is model-invariant in the following sense: if the theory says that C caused (didn't cause) E in a causal model, M, then it will continue to say that C caused (didn't cause) E once we've removed an inessential variable from M. I suggest that, if this theory is true, then we should understand a cause as something which transmits deviant or (...) non-inertial behavior to its effect. (shrink)

The full range of Bentham's engagement with Blackstone's view of law is beyond the scope of a single article. Yet it is important to recognize at the outset, even in a more restricted enquiry into the matter, that the engagement, begun when Bentham, not quite sixteen years of age, started to attend Blackstone's Oxford lectures, was indeed a lifelong affair. Whatever Bentham had in mind when, at the age of eighty, in 1828, he began to write a work entitled ‘A (...) familar view of Blackstone: or say Blackstone familiarized’, the manuscripts at least suffice to prove that ‘Our Author’ was still in the forefront of his mind at that octogenarian but still indefatigably active stage of his career. Every aspect of Bentham's multifarious intellectual activity over the intervening decades had been touched in some measure by his response to Blackstone's ideas. It still seems true to say what was said a dozen years ago: It would be an exaggeration to say that Bentham elaborated his own conception of law by way of a constant and conscious dialectic with the views of Blackstone. But it would be an exaggeration for which the evidence would afford some excuse. (shrink)

Jean-Baptiste Say is largely forgotten in modern economics; if he is remembered and studied, it is for Say’s Law, which was misinterpreted by John Maynard Keynes, and ended up providing the basis for the General Theory. In this chapter, we review Say’s Law and a more correct interpretation. We then use this to highlight the contributions of Say to modern macroeconomics, the microfoundations of macroeconomics, and entrepreneurship theory. Say was an influential French thinker – modern classical liberalism owes much to (...) him, and would be enriched by a rediscovery of his writings. (shrink)

Chuang Chou is counted among the greatest of the classical, Chinese philosophers. His thought, strongly inspired by the father of Taoism, Lao Tzu, is a reaction against the ritualized and ossified Confucianism of his own time. He shows little interest in legal matters and moral casuistry, and his whole work, i.e., the collection of texts attributed to him since ancient times, is centered around the deepest metaphysical and religious problems. God, and the way to Him, are the real subject matter (...) of his writings. But Chuang Chou attempted to write no treatise on systematic theology: he preferred to clothe his ideas in short stories, tales, and magnificent aphorisms. Practically no knowledge of the history of Chinese civilization is needed to understand and to love this book, which manages to preserve, after twenty-three centuries, its marvellous freshness.—M. J. V. (shrink)

A good argument is one whose conclusions follow from its premises; its conclusions are consequences of its premises. But in what sense do conclusions follow from premises? What is it for a conclusion to be a consequence of premises? Those questions, in many respects, are at the heart of logic (as a philosophical discipline). Consider the following argument: 1. If we charge high fees for university, only the rich will enroll. We charge high fees for university. Therefore, only the rich (...) will enroll. There are many different things one can say about this argument, but many agree that if we do not equivocate (if the terms mean the same thing in the premises and the conclusion) then the argument is valid, that is, the conclusion follows deductively from the premises. This does not mean that the conclusion is true. Perhaps the premises are not true. However, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is also true, as a matter of logic. This entry is about the relation between premises and conclusions in valid arguments. (shrink)

A norm of local expert deference says that your credence in an arbitrary proposition A, given that the expert's probability for A is n, should be n. A norm of global expert deference says that your credence in A, given that the expert's entire probability function is E, should be E(A). Gaifman (1988) taught us that these two norms are not equivalent. Stalnaker (2019) conjectures that Gaifman's example is "a loophole". Here, I substantiate Stalnaker's suspicions by providing characterisation theorems which (...) tell us precisely when the norms give different advice. They tell us that, in a good sense, Gaifman's example is the only case where the two norms differ. I suggest that the lesson of the theorems is that Bayesian epistemologists need not concern themselves with the differences between these two kinds of norms. While they are not strictly speaking equivalent, they are equivalent for all philosophical purposes. (shrink)

Scholars have long recognized that hypothêkai, or instructional wisdom sayings, served as building blocks for larger structures of Greek wisdom poetry. Yet the mechanism that gets from saying to poem has never been traced in detail. If the transition involves more than piling sayings on top of each other, what intervenes? Focusing on the archaic hexametrical tradition of Homer and Hesiod, the paper develops a repertory of variations and expansions by which the primary genre, the hypothêkê speech-act, is transformed into (...) a secondary genre—the larger-scale wisdom constructions we find in various Homeric speeches and much if not all of the Works and Days. The paper first argues for a precise formal description of the hypothêkê saying in the archaic hexameter; it then develops a toolbox of variations on the saying's basic form. Finally, the toolbox is put to work in order to read a forty-verse excerpt of Hesiod's Almanac. (shrink)

Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We advocate a very different (...) sort of externalism: an _active externalism_, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes. (shrink)

Efforts to decrease errors in health care are directed at prevention rather than at managing a situation when a mistake has occurred. Consequently, nurses and other health care providers may not know how to respond properly and may lack sufficient support to make a healthy recovery from the mental anguish and emotional suffering that often accompany making mistakes. This article explores the conceptualization of mistakes and the ethical response to making a mistake. There are three parts to an ethical response (...) to error: disclosure, apology and amends. Honesty and humility are discussed as important virtues that facilitate coping and personal growth for the health care provider who is involved in mistakes. In conclusion, a healthy view of nursing practice and mistake making is one that prevents error but, when prevention is not possible, accepts fallibility as part of the human condition and achieves the best possible outcome for all. (shrink)

There is an ethics of blaming the person who deserves blame. The Christian scriptures imply the following no-vengeance condition: a person should not vengefully overtly blame a wrongdoer even if she gives the wrongdoer the exact negative treatment that he deserves. I explicate and defend this novel condition and argue that it demands a revolution in our blaming practices. First, I explain the no-vengeance condition. Second, I argue that the no-vengeance condition is often violated. The most common species of blame (...) involves anger; anger conceptually includes a desire for vengeance; and there are many pleasures in payback. Third, I clarify that it is possible to blame non-vengefully in anger and highlight three good uses for anger in non-vengeful blame. Fourth, I offer two reasons that justify the divine command prohibiting vengeance, and I note that the Christian God is merely sufficient to make non-vengeance morally obligatory. Fifth, I defend the no-vengeance condition against four biblical objections. (shrink)

Every choice we make is set against a background of massive ignorance about our past, our future, our circumstances, and ourselves. Philosophers are divided on the moral significance of such ignorance. Some say that it has a direct impact on how we ought to behave - the question of what our moral obligations are; others deny this, claiming that it only affects how we ought to be judged in light of the behaviour in which we choose to engage - the (...) question of what responsibility we bear for our choices. Michael Zimmerman claims that our ignorance has an important bearing on both questions, and offers an account of moral obligation and moral responsibility that is sharply at odds with the prevailing wisdom. His book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in ethics. (shrink)

The Liar paradox raises foundational questions about logic, language, and truth (and semantic notions in general). A simple Liar sentence like 'This sentence is false' appears to be both true and false if it is either true or false. For if the sentence is true, then what it says is the case; but what it says is that it is false, hence it must be false. On the other hand, if the statement is false, then it is true, since it (...) says (only) that it is false. -/- How, then, should we classify Liar sentences? Are they true or false? A natural suggestion would be that Liars are neither true nor false; that is, they fall into a category beyond truth and falsity. This solution might resolve the initial problem, but it beckons the Liar's revenge. A sentence that says of itself only that it is false or beyond truth and falsity will, in effect, bring back the initial problem. The Liar's revenge is a witness to the hydra-like nature of Liars: in dealing with one Liar you often bring about another. -/- JC Beall presents fourteen new essays and an extensive introduction, which examine the nature of the Liar paradox and its resistance to any attempt to solve it. Written by some of the world's leading experts in the field, the papers in this volume will be an important resource for those working in truth studies, philosophical logic, and philosophy of language, as well as those with an interest in formal semantics and metaphysics. (shrink)

The philosophical significance of attitudinal autonomy—viz., the autonomy of attitudes such as beliefs—is widely discussed in the literature on moral responsibility and free will. Within this literature, a key debate centres around the following question: is the kind of attitudinal autonomy that’s relevant to moral responsibility at a given time determined entirely by a subject’s present mental structure at that time? Internalists say ‘yes’, externalists say ’no’. In this essay, I motivate a kind of distinctly epistemic attitudinal autonomy, attitudinal autonomy (...) that is relevant to knowledge. I argue that regardless of whether we are externalists or internalists about the kind of attitudinal autonomy that is relevant for moral responsibility, we should be externalists about the kind of autonomy that a belief must have to qualify as knowledge. (shrink)

The Rev’d Roland Allen’s grandson ventures to speculate on the attitudes his grandfather might be expected to have adopted regarding several of today’s controversial issues. After rehearsing briefly Roland’s published and unpublished work, Hubert Allen reviews, both on the basis of Roland’s expressed opinions and by inference from remarks made by him or by members of his immediate family, how he believes his grandfather would have reacted to six matters of current or recent controversy, namely: Modern Translations of the Bible, (...) The Role of Women in the Church, Homosexuality, Ecumenism, Inter-Faith Dialogue, and the proposed Anglican Covenant. (shrink)

John and Mary have fully consensual sex, but they do not want to have a child, so they use contraception with the intention of avoiding pregnancy. Unfortunately, although they used the contraception in the way in which it is supposed to be used, Mary has become pregnant. The couple decides to have the baby, whom they name ‘Ernie’. Now we fill in the story a bit. The universe is causally deterministic, and 30 years later Ernie performs some action A and (...) thereby brings about event E. We also stipulate that Ernie meets plausible compatibilist conditions for acting freely . That is, we suppose that there are no uncontroversially freedom- and responsibility-undermining conditions present in the context in which Ernie performs A, and, further, that Ernie meets plausible compatibilist conditions for acting freely. Let us say, for example, that one adopts the theory according to which the freedom-relevant condition on moral responsibility is that the agent exhibits ‘guidance control’ of his action and . On this approach, one acts freely in so far as one acts from one's own, suitably reasons-responsive mechanism. We can then simply stipulate that, in the relevant context, Ernie acts from his own, suitably reasons-responsive mechanism . If one prefers a different set of compatiblist-friendly conditions for acting freely, one can simply stipulate that Ernie meets them; indeed, the plausible compatibilist-friendly conditions seem to be compatible with each other, and thus Ernie could presumably meet all of them in the relevant context. In such a case, and given that the epistemic condition on acting freely and moral responsibility is met, I am inclined to say that Ernie …. (shrink)

One of the Machiavelli's most famous and innovative thesis states that good laws arise from social conflicts, according to the Roman Empire example of the opposition between plebs and nobles. Conflicts are able to bring about order in virtue of the characteristic constrictive force of necessity, which prevents the ambition to prevail. Nonetheless, law does not neutralize the conflict; just give it a regulation. So, law is subjected to history, to the continuous change, which means that it is potentially corruptible. (...) On this account, Machiavelli says that a State can only maintain its authority through a continuous return to the originary moment, viz. to the revival of the experiences of "fear", "terror" and "punishment" lived in the originary event of the foundation. For that reason, in the origin of law is also the violence, whose combined function is to provide legitimacy to its exercise by the State apparatus as the only form to preserve political life from ruin.Uma das mais famosas e inovadoras teses de Maquiavel é a afirmação de que as boas leis nascem dos conflitos sociais, segundo o exemplo romano das oposições entre plebe e nobres. Os conflitos são capazes de produzir ordem por conter a força constritiva própria da necessidade, que impede a ambição de reinar. Contudo, a lei não neutraliza o conflito, mas apenas lhe dá uma ordenação. A lei está, pois, exposta à história, à contínua mudança, o que significa dizer que é potencialmente corruptível. Por causa desta possibilidade, Maquiavel afirma que um Estado somente mantém sua autoridade por meio de um retorno contínuo ao momento da origem, isto é, à revivência da experiência do "medo", do "terror" e da "punição" do acontecimento originário da fundação. Assim, na origem da lei está a violência, cuja função é proporcionar a legitimação de seu exercício pelo aparato estatal como única forma de preservar da ruína a vida política. (shrink)