This chapter discusses Ayn Rand's view of the moral principles by which individuals should interact with one another and societies should be organized. It concentrates on four issues: the role of trade and the benevolent attitudes that trade relationships engender; Rand's principle that man is an end in himself; the question of whether there are conflicts among human interests; and Rand's account of individual rights. Benevolence, both as an individual characteristic and as an attribute of a society, depends on the (...) moral choices of individuals. The possession of a correct philosophical theory of human good is a necessary condition of a having fully objective and wholly corrects conception of one's personal interests. In Rand's ethics, rationality is the primary moral virtue, but it is possible to possess this virtue without having theoretical knowledge of morality. The values of social life require not just human interactions but organized, permanent settlements societies. (shrink)

Those familiar with Ayn Rand's ethical writings may know that she discusses issues in metaethics, and that she defended the objectivity of morality during the heyday of early non-cognitivism. But neither her metaethics, in general, nor her views on moral objectivity, in particular, have received wide study. This article elucidates some aspects of her thought in these areas, focusing on Rand's conception of the way in which moral values serve a biologically based human need, and on her account of moral (...) values as both essentially practical and epistemically objective in a sense fundamentally continuous with the objectivity of science. The bearing of her epistemological writings on her ethical thought is emphasized throughout, and her epistemology is defended against a line of criticism inspired by John McDowell's criticism of the so-called “myth of the given.”. (shrink)

G. E. Moore’s early essay, “The Nature of Judgment,” makes common cause with F. H. Bradley’s Principles of Logic against British empiricism’s characteristic view of judgment. But primarily it attacks positions Bradley and the empiricists share. I develop a fuller analysis of both aspects of “The Nature of Judgment” than has appeared. Bradley’s rejection of empiricist nominalism, I argue, enables him to develop what Moore considers a superior account of judgment to empiricism’s. But positions carried over from empiricism require Bradley (...) to seek all judgments’ truth conditions in existing circumstances, a result intolerable to Moore, who views mathematical and ethical judgments as being true independently of the world. Moore abandons Bradley’s vestigal empiricism, arguing that it leads invariably to self-contradiction. I reconstruct this argument, and draw out of it an unrecognized tension between the anti-empiricist and the anti-idealist themes of Moore’s early writings. (shrink)

This is the first scholarly study of Atlas Shrugged, covering in detail the historical, literary, and philosophical aspects of Ayn Rand's magnum opus. Topics explored in depth include the history behind the novel's creation, publication, and reception; its nature as a romantic novel; and its presentation of a radical new philosophy.

The essays in this collection treat historical, literary, and philosophical topics related to Ayn Rand's Anthem, an anti-utopia fantasy set in the future. The first book-length study on Anthem, this collection covers subjects such as free will, political freedom, and the connection between freedom and individual thought and privacy.

IN 1959 and 1960 I gave the Gifford Lectures in the University of St. Andrews. The lectures were called 'Norms and Values, an Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Morals and Legislation'. The present work is substantially the same as the content of the second series of lectures, then advertised under the not very adequate title 'Values'. It is my plan to publish a revised version of the content of the first series of lectures, called 'Norms', as a separate book. (...) The two works will be independent of one another. (shrink)

Confucius in the Technology Realm is a ground-breaking new approach to the dynamic world of Education Technology. In this work, the author has decided to soften on structure and focus on art - to take a philosophical approach to the planning and management of the chaotic and ever-changing realm of Educational Technology - what would Confucius think about Ed Tech? But while providing a method of inquiry for philosophical guidance, the book is also meant to reinforce the ethereal concepts with (...) real-world, Ed Tech examples. The ultimate objectives of impacting student learning and achievement and mastery of philosophical self-discipline becomes one and the same - thus, the Tao of Education Technology may be seen as Confucius' viewpoint, helping identify the path to transcending the organization's people, policies, and processes to attain a state where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - where the education technology infrastructure and operational support structure are ingrained and embodied within the organization as a whole. (shrink)

In contemporary philosophy of mind and psychiatry, schizophrenic thought insertion is often used as a validating or invalidating counterexample in various theories about how we experience ourselves. Recent work has taken cases of thought insertion to provide an invalidating counterexample to the Humean denial of self-experience, arguing that deficiencies of agency in thought insertion suggest that we normally experience ourselves as the agent of our thoughts. In this paper, I argue that appealing to a breakdown in the sense of agency (...) to explain thought insertion is problematic, and that rather than following the prevailing binary approach which holds that certain features of consciousness go missing while others remain wholly intact, a better explanation involves construing thought insertion as a disturbing or disrupting of the subjectivity (for-me-ness) of experience. The result is that experiencing ourselves as the subject of our thoughts is where future research should be directed, given the robust persistence of this form of self-experience across psychopathological and non-psychopathological cases alike. (shrink)

The ontic conception of scientific explanation has been constructed and motivated on the basis of a putative lexical ambiguity in the term explanation. I raise a puzzle for this ambiguity claim, and then give a deflationary solution under which all ontically-rendered talk of explanation is merely elliptical; what it is elliptical for is a view of scientific explanation that altogether avoids the ontic conception. This result has revisionary consequences for New Mechanists and other philosophers of science, many of whom have (...) assimilated their conception of explanation to the ontic conception. (shrink)

The philosophical contemplation of “first philosophy” is as old as Western philosophy itself, and yet “first philosophy” is often eschewed in contemporary philosophical thought. This is because attempts at arriving at a first philosophy have often been steeped in metaphysical thinking that aims at non-finite foundations as the constitutive ground of human reality. However, in our contemporary world in which metaphysical postulates render themselves increasingly outmoded and immaterial, can we still speak of first philosophy today? This is to ask whether (...) or not it may be possible to formulate a first philosophy based on strictly finite principles. This article seeks to demonstrate that the concept of finite “existence” can be read as first philosophy in the contemporary thought of Jean-Luc Nancy (1940–2021). Firstly, a conceptual analysis on the concepts of “being” and “existence” will be carried out with the express purpose of trying to ascertain the meaningful difference between these two concepts in Nancy’s thought, if indeed such a difference exists at all. From this conceptual analysis, it will be demonstrated that Nancy consistently and effectively elevates the concept of finite existence to philosophical primacy above that of non-finite being and, as a result, brings to light the possibility of (re)thinking existence as first philosophy in Nancy’s thought. (shrink)

Philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) places investigations of value, meaning, and the good life at the center of philosophical investigation, especially of one’s own life. This essay argues that PWOL is compatible with general introductory philosophy courses, further arguing that PWOL‐based general introductions have several philosophical and pedagogical benefits. These include the ease with which high‐impact practices, situated skill development, and students’ ability to “think like a disciplinarian” may be incorporated into such courses, relative to more traditional introductory (...) courses, as well as the demonstration of philosophy’s value to students by explicitly tying philosophical investigation to students’ own lives. (shrink)

In our pursuit of a good life (eubios), both individuals and societies, need to educate themselves on the pursuit of love of life in all domains, self-love, love of others, loving good and love of life. In this paper I reflect on my own journey through growing up in Christchurch, and experiences around the world, that are the basis for that conclusion. In our efforts to pursuit bioethics education we can enhance peaceful and harmonius coexistence in our world, through nurturing (...) good decisions that we should all make. (shrink)

This book attempts to articulate a contemporary philosophy of life drawing upon Buddhist resources from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. Among the major themes in this Mahayana Buddhist scripture is the "skillful means" required to live a healthy and undeluded life. The book adopts that theme as a means of developing a practical approach to contemporary Buddhist life. Following many of the brilliant stories in the sutra, this book attempts to provide clear explanations for the primary Buddhist teachings and the relationships that (...) bind them all together into an inspiring way of living. Among the questions addressed are: who is the Buddha, how is a worldview of change and contingency applicable to current life, what does it mean to claim that there is no permanent self, what are the primary characteristics of an admirable Buddhist life, how is freedom conceived in Buddhism, and how do all of these themes help us address contemporary issues such as global warming, gender identities, political dichotomies, the global economy, and more. Although historical questions do arise in the book, its primary purpose if contemporary and practical, an effort to say clearly how this text helps us stake out a way of living for contemporary, global citizens. (shrink)

Author Robert Wright shows how Buddhist meditative practice can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and deepen your appreciation of beauty and other people." -- Adapted from book jacket.

Traditional inflationary approaches that specify the nature of truth are attractive in certain ways; yet, while many of these theories successfully explain why propositions in certain domains of discourse are true, they fail to adequately specify the nature of truth because they run up against counterexamples when attempting to generalize across all domains. One popular consequence is skepticism about the efficaciousness of inflationary approaches altogether. Yet, by recognizing that the failure to explain the truth of disparate propositions often stems from (...) inflationary approaches' allegiance to alethic monism, pluralist approaches are able to avoid this explanatory inadequacy and the resulting skepticism, though at the cost of inviting other conceptual difficulties. A novel approach, alethic functionalism, attempts to circumvent the problems faced by pluralist approaches while preserving their main insights. Unfortunately, it too generates additional problems---namely, with its suspect appropriation of the multiple realizability paradigm and its platitude-based strategy---that need to be dissolved before it can constitute an adequate inflationary approach to the nature of truth. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflect on society's relationship with technology and particularly our increasing dependence on electronic technology – so‐called eDependency. The paper argues that technology is not neutral and we must engage with the moral issues that arise from our relationship with it.Design/methodology/approachSociety's relationship with technology is examined through the lens of Socrates' consideration of the technology of writing. It identifies “technophilia” as a major theme in society and “neo‐Luddism” as the Socrates‐like examination of the benefits (...) of technology.FindingsWhile rejecting both technology determinism and technology presentism the paper argues technology is not neutral and does afford social change within a particular social ecology. The authors suggest that ultimately the use of all technology, including the technology underpinning eDependency, leads to important moral questions which deserve considered debate. The paper concludes by arguing that the Information Systems discipline should take the mantle of King Thamus and that the study of these issues should become a key concern for the discipline.Originality/valueIn an age of technophilia, this paper calls considered debate on the moral issues that arise from our relationship with technology, how it is appropriated, to whose benefit, and how we change it and will be changed by it. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to develop and illustrate an approach for making the commonplace visible in a natural, as opposed to manipulated, social setting. The key research task was to find a way of capturing the ongoing production or enactment of the self that provides some insight into the way in which it is produced in a routine, matter of fact way. The article takes a number of steps to develop a research approach to the task. First, gender-identity (...) was selected as a more specific aspect of self-production. Second, the concept of "flashpoints" was used to refer to a particular moment in the routine which achieves some significance or salience as a result of the participants seizing upon some otherwise unremarkable action or statement and twisting it to their purpose. In this study, the purpose was gender-identity creation. Primary school children in the classroom and their teachers were the participants of the study. Through the use of flashpoints, the article demonstrates how gender-identity production of these children can be caught in flight. The article concludes that this approach can be added to the researcher's toolkit. (shrink)

One possible challenge for epiphenomenalism arises from the theory of evolution: if the mental has no causal powers, how might it have evolved? The aim of this paper is to argue that, contrary to some arguments advanced by other philosophers, most particularly William Robinson and Joseph Corabi, considerations from the theory of evolution do pose a genuine difficulty for epiphenomenalism.

Matti Häyry’s new book Rationality and the Genetic Challenge discusses the ethics of human genetic modification and the bioethical rationalities that inform the different ethical conclusions authors have advanced. It is aimed at correcting the belief that “only one rationality exists or one morality exists; that those that disagree [with them] are unreasonable or evil.” Häyry argues that there are multiple rationalities, and that even though ethical issues may have solutions within individual rationalities, disagreements that have their root in separate (...) rational approaches cannot be universally solved by intellectual arguments. In debates about the ethics of using new biotechnologies to genetically modify human beings, the normal state is one of fundamental disagreement over almost all of the anticipated uses to which the technology could be put. Häyry’s point is that such a state of affairs is not necessarily due to a lack of reason because there are many, equally valid, ways of being reasonable. (shrink)

This article proposes a theological emphasis to the definition of προσλαμβάνω in Romans 14–15. Previous accounts have emphasised the domestic and social implication of Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’ (Rom. 15:7a). The result has been that what Paul might have meant by God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ (Rom. 14:3 and 15:7b) has been governed by the ethical imperative. In order to investigate the ‘welcome’ of God and Christ, this article proposes a context of three important Septuagintal antecedents as yet unconsidered: 1 Samuel (...) 12, Psalm 18, and Psalm 65: In this context, God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ in Rom. 14–15 incorporates notions of justification, election, salvation, and unified worship. A theological reading of προσλαμβάνω, using these intertextual resources, therefore provides a stronger position from which to understand Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’. (shrink)

This is the first critical edition of a fascinating medieval work on music, written in Iraq in the tenth century. It is accompanied by an English translation and full annotation. The Epistle examines not just the technical, scientific, and mathematical aspects of music, but its cosmic, psychological, and spiritual dimensions.

Functionalists about truth employ Ramsification to produce an implicit definition of the theoretical term _true_, but doing so requires determining that the theory introducing that term is itself true. A variety of putative dissolutions to this problem of epistemic circularity are shown to be unsatisfactory. One solution is offered on functionalists' behalf, though it has the upshot that they must tread on their anti-pluralist commitments.

Prior research has not found a meaningful relationship between digital piracy and moral development, possibly because students do not recognize digital piracy as a moral issue. Rather than measure moral development as an individual characteristic, this study tests which components of moral development are seen as relevant to digital piracy. If some of the stages of moral development are applicable to music piracy behavior, people are more likely to pirate than to engage in other more morally intense behaviors. Some of (...) the stages of moral development are found to be associated with moral development. Proximity to the victim reduces the acceptability of music piracy. (shrink)