Argues that the central cognitive component of ethical virtue for Aristotle is awareness of the value of particulars.

Argues that the central cognitive component of ethical virtue for Aristotle is awareness of the value of particulars.

In _Essential Vulnerabilities, _Deborah Achtenberg contests Emmanuel Levinas’s idea that Plato is a philosopher of freedom for whom thought is a return to the self. Instead, Plato, like Levinas, is a philosopher of the other. Nonetheless, Achtenberg argues, Plato and Levinas are different. Though they share the view that human beings are essentially vulnerable and essentially in relation to others, they conceive human vulnerability and responsiveness differently. For Plato, when we see beautiful others, we are overwhelmed by the (...) beauty of what is, by the vision of eternal form. For Levinas, we are disrupted by the newness, foreignness, or singularity of the other. The other, for him, is new or foreign, not eternal. The other is unknowable singularity. By showing these similarities and differences, Achtenberg resituates Plato in relation to Levinas and opens up two contrasting ways that self is essentially in relation to others. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bearing the Other and Bearing Sexuality: Women and Gender in Levinas’s “And God Created Woman”Deborah Achtenberg (bio)Much ink has been spilled on the question of the role of women for Levinas’s ethics in accounts containing a gamut of claims, from Stella Sandford’s that woman is aligned with sexual difference in such a way that Levinas’s attempts to install her within the human fail,1 to Diane Perpich’s that (...) one reason Otherwise than Being is preferable to Totality and Infinity is that the ethics in the former does not rest on a failed narrative of family life and woman’s role in it as ethics does in the latter,2 to Claire Katz’s that there is a rich, positive ethical component to women’s role for Levinas since he uses maternity as an example of being-for-the-other.3This essay complements those accounts by giving a detailed analysis of the discussion of women in Levinas’s talmudic commentary, “And God Created Woman.”4 Specifically, I ask whether Levinas is right, in his commentary, that, according to Talmud Berakhot 61a, women are not ultimately inferior to men because both men and women are human and their humanity precedes the division of humanity into male [End Page 137] and female. I pursue the question by reading the talmudic passage the way Levinas, in his commentary, tells us that we should read Talmud, namely, by situating texts quoted in it in their broader textual context in Torah rather than treating them as proof texts.When I put quotations cited in Berakhot 61a in their textual context, I find that the male figures treated in the texts from Torah are dismayingly dismissive of women in distress, suggesting that women are treated as inferior, but then learn their mistake and treat the women as equal or even superior, suggesting that Talmud does see them as having a humanity that precedes sexual difference. Nonetheless, I go on to argue, though the talmudic passage does not see women as ultimately inferior to men, it nonetheless treats them as inferior on the day-to-day level and such treatment belies the attempt to treat them as human.I go on to ask about Levinas’s stance toward this problem in the talmudic text, Does he accept the treatment of women as inferior? I argue, to the contrary, that Levinas sees the problem and attempts to overcome it by criticizing two ways the talmudic passage treats women as inferior on the day-to-day level: he rejects the passages’ prohibitions on certain types of male contact with women—such as looking at them!—and he reinterprets its association of women with makeup and deception. His stance is more complicated, though, because he goes on to find a kernel of truth to preserve in each of the problematic talmudic positions: in the first, the fundamental ethical ambiguity of sexuality, since sexuality points toward the other as other but also toward one’s own satisfaction; in the second, what we might anachronistically call women’s ways of knowing that, for Levinas, have a certain ethical superiority over the ways men know. The two resolutions have their own problems, I maintain, since if Levinas is to avoid gender norming and gender hierarchy, he needs to make it clear that both the problematic ethical ambiguity of sexuality and also the ways of knowing he thinks are ethically superior are not essentially associated more with women than with men. [End Page 138]1Reading Levinas’s way, I search out the context of quotations, taking them not as proof texts, but as invitations to interpret. In “And God Created Woman,” he says, “each time a biblical verse is brought in as proof it is not likely that the sages of the Talmud are looking in these texts, squeezed every which way in spite of grammar, for a direct proof of the thesis they are upholding. It is always an invitation to search out the context of the quotation” (NT 166/DSS 130–31). As a feminist, when I search out the context of the quotations Levinas refers to in his reading of Berakhot 61a, I... (shrink)

Shestov and Levinas share a preference for Jerusalem over Athens—specifically, for a movement of spirit other than knowledge that is not oriented toward the past, as knowledge is, but toward the new. They characterize that movement differently: Shestov opts for faith and the exercise of creative powers based on his interpretation of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of knowledge, while Levinas prefers a suspension in which we marvel at the created other, an idea, influenced by Husserl on suspension, (...) which presages Levinas’s later notion of welcoming or being cored out by the absolute other. (shrink)

In this essay, I shall describe both Plato and Levinas as philosophers of the other, and delineate their similarities and differences on violence. In doing so, I will open up for broader reflection two importantly contrasting ways in which the self is essentially responsive to—as well as vulnerable to violence from—the other. I will also suggest a new way of situating Levinas in the history of philosophy, not, as he himself suggests, as one of the few in the history of (...) philosophy who has aphilosophy of the other but, instead, as one of a number of 20th century philosophers who turn to pre-modern thinkers for aid in critiquing early modern thought on a variety of topics, including whether the self is essentially closed or, instead, vulnerable, open and responsive to what is outside it. (shrink)

In a statement too strong even to summarize his own views, Jean-Paul Sartre famously declares in “Existentialism is a Humanism” that “man is nothing other than what he makes of himself.” It is bad faith, according to him, to attribute what I am to my family, culture, condition, etc., because through awareness of what I am and have been, I can determine whether what I am will continue into the future. Human being, as a result, is nothing but what he (...) or she has chosen or decided. In “On the Necessity and Impossibility of Being a Jew,” Jean Améry rejects that view.He explicitly rejects the idea that “I am what I am for myself and in myself, and nothing else.” In doing so, he is one of a group of Jewish thinkers, including Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, who reject Sartre’s ideas about Jewish identity and identi ty more generally, ideas expressed particularly in Reflections on the Jewish Question but amplified by views expressed in “Existentialism is a Humanism” and Being and Nothingness.Those in the group go out of their way to express their gratitude to Sartre f or writing on “the Jewish question” after the war --Sartre who wrote because he saw no mention of the 77,000 Jews in France who were deported and murdered by the Nazis. (shrink)

In what precedes, I have argued that Aristotle does not, in his ethics, commit three metaphysical errors sometimes imputed to him: he does not define the good as a fact; he does not claim that human beings move by nature towards their telos; he does not claim, in the ergon argument, that human beings are fixed rather than versatile. Instead, I have shown, he does the opposite in each case: he argues that the good cannot be defined as a fact; (...) he claims that human beings move towards their telos only if they have virtue and virtue is not by nature; he locates, in the human ergon, that which is responsible for human versatility. Finally, I have shown by example that the metaphysical commitments of Aristotle's account of human happiness are not as controversial as they seem.If all of this is true, then perhaps the disorder that has existed in ethics since the enlightenment has been misdiagnosed. Perhaps it is not due to an unhappy choice between end-neutral emotivism on the one hand and Aristotle's bad metaphysics on the other. Perhaps instead it is due, at least in part, to a too hasty rejection of Aristotle's ethics on the grounds of a rejection of his biology. (shrink)

The inquiry is an introduction to the question, what is goodness? In it, realist and anti-realist accounts are considered. In Part I, two kinds of anti-realism are considered, subjectivist and strict. Subjectivism is the belief that goodness is belief-, affect-, or convention-dependent. It is suggested that subjectivism is based on an equivocation, is circular or is difficult consistently to maintain. Strict anti-realism is the belief that there is and can be no such thing as goodness. Three strict anti-realists are considered: (...) A. J. Ayer, Charles L. Stevenson and R. M. Hare. It is suggested that strict anti-realism is a kind of nihilism and that it is inconsistent with any practice. Whether strict anti-realism is true, however, is not decided. ;In Part II, three realist accounts are considered, those of G. E. Moore, Aristotle and Plato's Socrates in the Republic. It is argued that Moore's analytic and anti-holist account is false. Aristotle's substance ontological account, i.e., his 'somehow holism', is shown to be more phenomenally adequate. The hypothetical realism of Plato's Socrates in the Republic is shown to locate the good in a hierarchical ontology. ;In the Conclusion, a 'Socratic-Aristotelian' account is considered and is seen to account for certain phenomena, to accord with usage and etymology and to avoid the 'naturalistic fallacy'. It is, however, seen to have its own difficulties the consideration of which requires an additional account. (shrink)

The title alludes to the central topic of the book, the relation between practical reason and value. We face a dilemma. Either practical reason is purely cognitive and so cannot motivate action, or practical reason is merely a function of an agent's actual desire in which case there can be no objective reasons for action. The stated purpose of the book is to provide a solution to the dilemma, a solution which retains the necessary connection between reason and motivation on (...) the one hand and between reason and value on the other. The solution: All standard acts are done for reasons, for they are all done to satisfy some want. But, reasons for acting are of two kinds, motivating and grounding. Motivating reasons are intentional; a rationally motivated act is one done on the basis of what one takes to be a reason. Grounding reasons are factual; a rationally grounded act is one in which one really has the reason one thinks one has. Motivating reasons have a necessary connection to desire; grounding reasons have a necessary connection to value. But there is no necessary connection between desire and value, since there is none between motivating and grounding reasons. Value, then, is not a mere function of desire: one can be mistaken in one's belief that something is a reason for action; one can have a reason for acting of which one is unaware and which therefore does not generate a desire. (shrink)

With Skepticism in Ethics, Panayot Butchvarov joins a small group of practical philosophers who are attempting to define a third alternative to the two dominant approaches to practical philosophy in the twentieth century--the approach which puts practical philosophy on one or another model of empirical science and the approach which holds that practical philosophy is interpretive through and through.

Once these similarities are delineated—that both philosophers are for the subject and against knowledge—Chalier’s central preoccupation is to analyze and assess differences. Central among them is Kant’s rejection of heteronomy and Levinas’s wholehearted acceptance of it. In this, Levinas proceeds similarly to Heidegger and many ancient Greek philosophers, but with a difference that Chalier highlights: Levinas, like Kant, does not seek to ground morality in a knowable order external to the subject such as the cosmos, being, nature, or society. Kant (...) seeks an internal disposition, the good will, and an internal categorical principle. This makes the principle of his ethics outside of knowledge but internal to the subject. Levinas, by contrast, seeks an “anarchic” ethics—anarchic, according to Chalier, because its arche or principle is outside the subject and outside of knowledge. Chalier describes, then, two very different philosophies of the subject beyond knowledge, one in which the subject is utterly autonomous and morality stems not from will in accord with a knowable order but from good will; another in which the origin of the subject and of moral obligation is unknowable but outside the subject. (shrink)

In the social sciences and in everyday speech we often talk about groups as if they behaved in the same way as individuals, thinking and acting as a singular being. We say for example that "Google intends to develop an automated car", "the U.S. Government believes that Syria has used chemical weapons on its people", or that "the NRA wants to protect the rights of gun owners". We also often ascribe legal and moral responsibility to groups. But could groups literally (...) intend things? Is there such a thing as a collective mind? If so, should groups be held morally responsible? Such questions are of vital importance to our understanding of the social world. In this lively, engaging introduction Deborah Tollefsen offers a careful survey of contemporary philosophers? answers to these questions, and argues for the unorthodox view that certain groups should, indeed, be treated as agents and deserve to be held morally accountable. Tollefsen explores the nature of belief, action and intention, and shows the reader how a belief in group agency can be reconciled with our understanding of individual agency and accountability. _Groups as Agents_ will be a vital resource for scholars as well as for students of philosophy and the social sciences encountering the topic for the first time. (shrink)

Responsible Robotics is about developing robots in ways that take their social implications into account, which includes conceptually framing robots and their role in the world accurately. We are now in the process of incorporating robots into our world and we are trying to figure out what to make of them and where to put them in our conceptual, physical, economic, legal, emotional and moral world. How humans think about robots, especially humanoid social robots, which elicit complex and sometimes disconcerting (...) reactions, is not predetermined. The animal–robot analogy is one of the most commonly used in attempting to frame interactions between humans and robots and it also tends to push in the direction of blurring the distinction between humans and machines. We argue that, despite some shared characteristics, when it comes to thinking about the moral status of humanoid robots, legal liability, and the impact of treatment of humanoid robots on how humans treat one another, analogies with animals are misleading. (shrink)

This paper analyses the hidden use of new axioms in set-theoretic practice with a focus on large cardinal axioms and presents a general overview of set-theoretic practices using large cardinal axioms. The hidden use of a new axiom provides extrinsic reasons in support of this axiom via the idea of verifiable consequences, which is especially relevant for set-theoretic practitioners with an absolutist view. Besides that, the hidden use has pragmatic significance for further important sub-groups of the set-theoretic community---set-theoretic practitioners with (...) a pluralist view and set-theoretic practitioners who aim for ZFC-proofs. By describing this, the paper gives a more complete picture of new axioms in set-theoretic practice. These observations, for instance, show that set-theoretic practitioners interested in ZFC-proofs use tools that go beyond ZFC. The analysis is based on empirical data that was collected in an extensive interview study with set-theoretic practitioners. (shrink)

This article argues that the fact that an action will compound a prior injustice counts as a reason against doing the action. I call this reason The Anti-Compounding Injustice principle or aci. Compounding injustice and the aci principle are likely to be relevant when analyzing the moral issues raised by “big data” and its combination with the computational power of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Past injustice can infect the data used in algorithmic decisions in two distinct ways. Sometimes prior (...) injustice undermines the accuracy of the data itself. In these contexts, improving accuracy will also help to avoid compounding injustice. Other times, past injustice produces real-world differences among people with regard to skills, health, wealth, and other traits that employers, lenders, and others seek to measure. When decisions are based on accurate data that itself results from prior injustice, these decisions can also compound injustice. This second dynamic has received less attention than the first but is especially important because improving the accuracy of data will not mitigate this unfairness. (shrink)

In recent discussions on the meaning of derogatory terms, most theorists base their investigations on the assumption that slurring terms could in principle have some neutral, i.e. purely descriptive, counterpart. Lauren Ashwell has recently shown that this assumption does not generalize to gendered slurs. This paper aims to challenge the point and benefit of approaching the meaning of derogatory terms in contrast to their allegedly purely descriptive counterparts. I argue that different discursive practices among different communities of practice sometimes change (...) the semantics of a term. By the example of the term ‘black,’ I show in what ways these different practices may amount to semantic contestations which complicate the assessment of whether a specific politically significant term is purely descriptive. My discussion of politically significant terms provides insights into further phenomena such as the appropriation of derogatory terms by the target group or meaning change more generally. Moreover, it not only accounts for the political aspects of a linguistic phenomenon, but equally highlights and explains the oft-neglected but crucial role that language plays in social and political struggles. It thus contributes to ongoing discussions both in philosophy of language and in social and political philosophy. (shrink)

While many philosophers of science have accorded special evidential significance to tests whose results are "novel facts", there continues to be disagreement over both the definition of novelty and why it should matter. The view of novelty favored by Giere, Lakatos, Worrall and many others is that of use-novelty: An accordance between evidence e and hypothesis h provides a genuine test of h only if e is not used in h's construction. I argue that what lies behind the intuition that (...) novelty matters is the deeper intuition that severe tests matter. I set out a criterion of severity akin to the notion of a test's power in Neyman-Pearson statistics. I argue that tests which are use-novel may fail to be severe, and tests that are severe may fail to be use-novel. I discuss the 1919 eclipse data as a severe test of Einstein's law of gravity. (shrink)

In 1241/4 the theology masters at the university at Paris with their chancellor, Odo of Chateauroux, mandated by their bishop, William of Auvergne, met to condemn ten propositions against theological truth. This book represents the first comprehensive examination of what hitherto has been a largely ignored instrument in a crucial period of the university's early maturation. However, the book's ambition goes wider than this. The condemnation provides a window through which to view the wider doctrinal, intellectual, institutional and historical developments (...) within the emerging university. These include the advent of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the university; and the developing focus of Paris theologians on using their learning for preaching at a time of a rapid and sometimes divergent development of doctrine and concerns over the newly-translated Aristotelian and associated Arab and Jewish works, heresy, the Greek Church and the Jews. The book compares the condemnation's ten articles with the major statement of Catholic principles in the first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, and assesses what conclusions can be drawn from their apparent correlation. (shrink)

In arguing against the likelihood of consciousness in non-human animals, Descartes advances a slippery slope argument that if thought were attributed to any one animal, it would have to be attributed to all, which is absurd. This paper examines the foundations of Thomas Willis’ comparative neuroanatomy against the background of Descartes’ slippery slope argument against animal consciousness. Inspired by Gassendi’s ideas about the corporeal soul, Thomas Willis distinguished between neural circuitry responsible for reflex behaviour and that responsible for cognitively or (...) consciously mediated behaviour. This afforded Willis a non-arbitrary basis for distinguishing between animals with thought and consciousness and those without, a methodology which retains currency for neuroscience today. (shrink)

Cheating is deeply embedded in everyday life. The costs of the most common forms of cheating total close to a trillion dollars annually. Part of the problem is that many individuals fail to see such behavior as a serious problem. "Everyone does it" is a common rationalization, and one that comes uncomfortably close to the truth. That perception is also self-perpetuating. The more that individuals believe that cheating is widespread, the easier it becomes to justify. Yet what is most notable (...) about analysis of the problem is how little there is of it. Whether or not Americans are cheating more, they appear to be worrying about it less. In Cheating, eminent legal scholar Deborah L. Rhode offers the only recent comprehensive account of cheating in everyday life and the strategies necessary to address it. Because cheating is highly situational, Rhode drills down on its most common forms in sports, organizations, taxes, academia, copyright infringement, marriage, and insurance and mortgages. Cheating also reviews strategies necessary to address the pervasiveness and persistence of cheating in these contexts. We clearly need more cultural reinforcement of ethical conduct. Efforts need to begin early, with values education by parents, teachers, and other role models who can display and reinforce moral behaviors. Organizations need to create ethical cultures, in which informal norms, formal policies, and reward structures all promote integrity. People also need more moral triggers that remind them of their own values. Equally important are more effective enforcement structures, including additional resources and stiffer sanctions. Finally, all of us need to take more responsibility for combatting cheating. We need not only to subject our own conduct to more demanding standards, but also to assume a greater obligation to prevent and report misconduct. Sustaining a culture that actively discourages cheating is a collective responsibility, and one in which we all have a substantial stake. (shrink)

Exploring the philosophical foundations of discrimination law as it exists in several jurisdictions, this collection of all new essays bridges the gap between abstract philosophical work on justice and fairness and legal work on specific types of discrimination.

Abstract Curiously missing in the vast literature on Hilary Putnam's so-called model-theoretic argument against semantic realism is any response from would-be proponents of what Putnam would call magical theories of reference. Such silence is surprising in light of the fact that such theories have occupied a significant position in the history of philosophy and the fact that there are still several prominent thinkers who would, no doubt, favor such a theory. This paper develops and examines various responses to Putnam's argument (...) on behalf of the proponent of a magical theory of reference. While Putnam's explicit replies to such responses to his argument seem to involve little more than name calling, I develop arguments that show that there are significant problems facing any would-be proponent of such a view. While magical theories of reference are far from the strawmen Putnam seems to take them to be, there are, I argue, genuine reasons for a semantic realist to prefer a non-magical theory of reference. (shrink)

Biobank research and genomic information are changing the way we look at health and medicine. Genomics challenges our values and has always been controversial and difficult to regulate. In the future lies the promise of tailored medical treatments and pharmacogenomics but the borders between medical research and clinical practice are becoming blurred. We see sequencing platforms for research that can have diagnostic value for patients. Clinical applications and research have been kept separate, but the blurring lines challenges existing regulations and (...) ethical frameworks.Then how do we regulate it? This book contains an overview of the existing regulatory landscape for biobank research in the Western world and some critical chapters to show how regulations and ethical frameworks are developed and work. How should international sharing work? How design an ethical informed consent? An underlying critique: the regulatory systems are becoming increasingly complex and opaque. The international community is building systems that should respond to that. According to the authors in fact, it is time to turn the ship around. Biobank researchers have a moral responsibility to look at and assess their work in relation to the bigger picture: the shared norms and values of current society. Research ethics shouldn't only be a matter of bioethicists writing guidelines that professionals have to follow. Ethics should be practiced through discourse and regulatory frameworks need to be part of that public discourse. Ethics review should be then not merely application of bureaucracy and a burden for researchers but an arena where researchers discuss their projects, receive advice and practice their ethics skills. (shrink)