Objectivism is the view that how an agent ought to act depends on all kinds of facts, regardless of the agent’s epistemic position with respect to them. One of the most important challenges to this view is constituted by certain cases involving specific conditions of uncertainty—so-called three-options cases. In these cases it seems overwhelmingly plausible that an agent ought to do what is recommendable given her limited perspective, even though the agent knows that this is not objectively the best course (...) of action. The standard objectivist response to this challenge relies on a distinction between what one ought to do and what would be blameworthy or unreasonable to do. This response is affected by several problems. In this paper I introduce and defend an alternative objectivist response to the challenge. My proposal admits that in the relevant cases the agent ought to do what is recommendable given her perspective, but maintains that this diagnosis of the cases is fully compatible with objectivism. I argue that this proposal has several advantages over alternative accounts of the cases. (shrink)

Should philosophers prefer simpler theories? Huemer (Philos Q 59:216–236, 2009) argues that the reasons to prefer simpler theories in science do not apply in philosophy. I will argue that Huemer is mistaken—the arguments he marshals for preferring simpler theories in science can also be applied in philosophy. Like Huemer, I will focus on the philosophy of mind and the nominalism/Platonism debate. But I want to engage with the broader issue of whether simplicity is relevant to philosophy.

Many think that a specific aspect of phenomenal consciousness – valenced or affective experience – is essential to consciousness’s moral significance (valence sentientism). They hold that valenced experience is necessary for well-being, or moral status, or psychological intrinsic value (or all three). Some think that phenomenal consciousness generally is necessary for non-derivative moral significance (broad sentientism). Few think that consciousness is unnecessary for moral significance (non-necessitarianism). In this paper I consider the prospects for these views. I first consider the prospects (...) for valence sentientism in light of Vulcans, beings who are conscious but without affect or valence of any sort. I think Vulcans pressure us to accept broad sentientism. But I argue that a consideration of explanations for broad sentientism opens up possible explanations for non-necessitarianism about the moral significance of consciousness. That is, once one leans away from valence sentientism because of Vulcans, one should feel pressure to accept a view on which consciousness is not necessary for well-being, moral status, or psychological intrinsic value. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag widmet sich der Hauptthese in Derek Parfits On What Matters, dass kantianische, konsequentialistische und kontraktualistische Theorien in der Moralphilosophie richtig verstanden zu gleichen Ergebnissen bei der Beurteilung moralischer Fragen gelangen. Anhand einer Diskussion von Parfits Reformulierung des kontraktualistischen Arguments wird gezeigt, dass die Akzeptanz dieser These entscheidend von einer Akzeptanz des Parfit’schen Gründebegriffs abhängt. Während es On What Matters nicht gelingen wird, diejenigen zu überzeugen, die Parfits objektiv-wertbasierte Gründetheorie nicht teilen, verweist selbst eine schwache Version der Konvergenzthese auf (...) eine weitere wichtige Funktion des Moraldiskurses. Die von Parfit vorgestellte Objektivität und Einheit können dabei als notwendiges Element eines systematischen Moraldiskurses auftreten, der eine kontinuierliche Auseinandersetzung über universelle Normgehalte zum Inhalt hat. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possible inspirations that might be derived from the viewpoints of Eastern Philosophy in contemporary studies of consciousness. First of all, two notions of consciousness are introduced, one of which can be explained by science. The other however cannot, and as such is also called the ‘Hard Problem’. Secondly, the special features shared by morality and the ‘Hard Problem of Consciousness’ are discussed. Thirdly, I discuss the conventional routes Oriental philosophy takes toward an exploration of the human (...) mind, and consequently point out that Oriental philosophy views consciousness as the fundamental feature of moral beings. One of the reasons that human beings can pursue meaningful life is because of the necessary existence of conscious experience. It is our conscious experience that makes a life of value possible. Therefore, in Oriental philosophy matters of consciousness revolve around aspects of morality and spirituality, and the training of the abilities of consciousness is emphasized over knowledge. Finally, this paper concludes with a comparison of the different approaches Oriental philosophy and current Western academics take in their study of consciousness. Hopefully, one day consciousness can be fully explored from more diverse viewpoints to gain a more comprehensive understanding and so further the happiness of humanity. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the history of the notion of essence in 20th century analytic philosophy, focusing on views held by influential analytic philosophers who discussed, or relied on essence or cognate notions in their works. It in particular covers Russell and Moore’s different approaches to essence before and after breaking with British idealism, the (pre- and post-)logical positivists’ critique of metaphysics and rejection of essence (Wittgenstein, Carnap, Schlick, Stebbing), the tendency to loosen the notion of logical necessity (...) to accommodate certain metaphysical truths in Wittgenstein and others, Quine’s logical rehabilitation of metaphysics and criticism of de re modality, the modal view of essence promoted by the development of quantified modal logic (C. I. Lewis, Barcan Marcus, Kripke) and direct reference theory (Barcan Marcus, Kripke, Putnam), and the emergence of the notion of metaphysical necessity (Kneale, Kripke), and finally Fine’s re-establishment of a Neo-Aristotelian, hyperintensional notion of essence in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

Unentwegt werden neue technische Produkte gestaltet. Doch was macht die technische Gestaltung aus? Wie lässt sich ihr Gegenstand - (noch) nicht existierende Artefakte - adäquat auf den Begriff bringen? Michael Kuhn begreift technische Ideen vor ihrer Realisierung als Fiktionen. Er bietet eine fiktionstheoretische Rekonstruktion der Gestaltungstätigkeit und entwickelt hieraus eine Ethik der Gestaltung. Der stark interdisziplinäre Zugang zwischen Technikphilosophie und Ingenieurwissenschaften liefert neue Erkenntnisse für beide Fachrichtungen und stellt wertvolle Grundlagen bereit.

This article discusses why it is the case that we refuse to accept strange evaluative claims as being true in fictions, even though we are happy to go along with other types of absurdities in such contexts. For instance, we would refuse to accept the following statement as true, even in the con-text of a fiction: -/- (i) In killing her baby, Giselda did the right thing; after all, it was a girl. -/- This article offers a sensibilist diagnosis of (...) this puzzle, inspired by an observation first made by David Hume. According to sensibilism, the way we feel about things settles their evaluative properties. Thus, when confronted with a fictional scenario where the configuration of non-evaluative facts and properties is relevantly similar to the actual world, we refuse to go along with evaluative properties being instantiated ac-cording to a different pattern. It is the attitudes we hold in the actual world that fix the extension of evaluative properties, even in non-actual worlds. When engaging with a fiction, we (to some extent) leave our be-liefs about what the world is like behind, while taking our emotional atti-tudes with us into the fiction. To substantiate this diagnosis, this paper outlines a sensibilist semantics for evaluative terms, based on recent discussion regarding predicates of personal taste, and explains how, together with standard assumptions about the nature of fictional discourse, it makes the relevant predictions with respect to engagement with fictions. (shrink)

Enactivism has the potential to provide a sense of teleology in purpose-directed action, but without violating the principles of efficient causation. Action can be distinguished from mere reaction by virtue of the fact that some systems are self-organizing. Self-organization in the brain is reflected in neural plasticity, and also in the primacy of motivational processes that initiate the release of neurotransmitters necessary for mental and conscious functions, and which guide selective attention processes. But in order to flesh out the enactivist (...) approach in a way that is plausible and not merely an epiphenomenon, it is necessary to confront the problem of causal closure in a serious way. Atoms and molecules in the brain do not violate the normal causal principles that govern them in other contexts. The theory of self-organizing dynamical systems must be developed in a way that is compatible with causal closure rather than contradicting it. (shrink)

All societies have to balance privacy claims with other moral concerns. However, while some concern for privacy appears to be a common feature of social life, the definition, extent and moral justifications for privacy differ widely. Are there better and worse ways of conceptualising, justifying, and managing privacy? These are the questions that lie in the background of this thesis. -/- My particular concern is with the ethical issues around privacy that are tied to the rise of new information and (...) communication technologies (henceforth “ICT”). The focus here is on technologies involved in processing personal data in its broadest sense, including “any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.” The issue of moral concern is commonly designated as that of 'data privacy'. -/- The first step is to consider why privacy matters, or ought to matter, in the first place. And here we run into our first difficulty, since both the conceptualisation of privacy and the justification for the right to privacy are matters for contention. On the one hand, we are animated by a moral concern for privacy in some sense; on the other, we lack the conceptual and moral resources for making sense of this concern or for promoting particular social policies and criticising others. This often-cited dichotomy and its ensuing confusion have been the central motivation for most of the philosophical literature on privacy – including this thesis. -/- In what follows, I will suggest a way out of the confusion that pervades the current debate on data privacy. I will essentially argue two claims: one, that the concept of (data) privacy is uniquely characterised by a particular context within which we exchange information; two, that because (data) privacy constitutes an intrinsic value, its moral concerns and justifications ought to be deliberated as such. -/- The first chapter sketches the current data privacy landscape by introducing a number of concepts and arguing the unique nature of the landscape. I argue that the traditional distinction between four kinds of privacy (physical, mental, decisional and informational) is no longer accurate, given the technological context that reduces, unifies and processes all aspects of people’s lives by means of digital data. In fact, to hold on to the distinction leads to a fundamental misconception of data privacy. I further argue that today’s distinction between data protection and data privacy runs the risk of ignoring the fact that the former is an inherent aspect of the latter. These arguments allow me to settle on a (provisional) definition of data privacy: controlling how data about identifiable people is processed by ICT. -/- Next, I draw a line between descriptive and normative accounts of data privacy, and explain why this book belongs to the latter category. After a brief discussion of the coherence and distinctiveness theses, and of the difference between instrumental and intrinsic theories of privacy, I introduce the problem of data privacy as a distinct, coherent, and intrinsic moral concern. Three arguments support this position: one, data privacy is a coherent moral concern because it is motivated by a singular moral concept; two, data privacy is a distinct moral concern because the privacy challenges we face today are of a fundamentally new nature – distinct from any moral concerns we’ve faced in the past; and three, data privacy is an intrinsic moral concern that is predominantly justified, not by what it instrumentally protects us from, but by what it intrinsically constitutes. -/- Chapter Two makes the case against a harm-based, consequentialist approach to data privacy. After a brief introduction to the basic tenets of consequentialism I discuss harm-based arguments in favour as well as against privacy. I explain how privacy may protect us against psychological distress, but at the same time constitute the source of that distress; how privacy may be necessary for the proper functioning of democratic societies, but at the same time provide a cloak for anti-social and immoral behaviour; and how privacy protects us against the improper use of our personal data by others, but at the same enables us to conceal information or spread false information about ourselves in ways that are harmful to others. Next, I argue that consequentialism essentially relies on two flawed presumptions – that we know what harm is, and that we know how to predict it – and discuss the controversies surrounding definitions and predictions of harm. This argument becomes especially pertinent in today’s rapidly changing technological context: we may guess, and make assumptions, perhaps even find correlations, but don’t really know or understand (yet) with any degree of certainty the harmful consequences today’s data privacy violations are causing or will eventually cause – if any. -/- I illustrate this with examples of recent data privacy violations, and with a brief overview of consequentialist arguments for and against data privacy. Those who invoke consequentialist arguments against data privacy claim that personal data is nothing more than a raw material that can be turned into something useful and valuable without harming anyone. Choosing to move fast and break things – a popular mantra that promotes the benefits of technological “permissionless innovation” over and above its risks and costs – they draw our attention to the many benefits free data flows generate. Those who rely on consequentialist arguments in favour of data privacy, on the other hand, insist on actual and potential misuse of personal data. Rather careful than sorry, they draw our attention to the urgent need to take back control and protect ourselves against data privacy violations – precisely because we don’t know which harm they may cause in the future. Others go one step further and argue that these violations are part of a broader ideology of power. -/- What Chapter Two demonstrates is that vague definitions, unreliable predictions and inconclusive allegations of harm from both sides of the debate perpetuate a stalemate that fails to produce morally defensible answers to our growing data privacy concerns. Deliberating about data privacy from a consequentialist perspective is a dead end. -/- Chapter Three proposes an alternative to the harm-based approach, namely that privacy is an intrinsic value that deserves moral protection for its own sake. After a brief account of what I take values to be, and why we have a need to protect them, I introduce the foundational value of respect for persons, and lay out my main argument in two steps. The conceptual component of my argument returns to the definition of data privacy I had temporarily settled on in Chapter One, but now with the added consideration of the particular context, and particular circumstances and attitudes, within which information is exchanged. This addition is crucial, as it reveals the fundamental value that is at stake in our data privacy concerns, namely the inherent value of each and every person, which we protect by upholding an ethical principle commonly known as the principle of respect for persons. It is for this reason that the violation of privacy cannot (only) be expressed in terms of harm. I further argue that the principle of respect for persons is consistent with, and in fact unthinkable without, some degree of privacy. -/- I reply to potential challenges to a value-based approach to data privacy by showing that (i) values and value trade-offs are fundamentally different from consequential benefits and cost-benefit analyses; (ii) the suspension of one value in favour of another is not inherently contradictory; what matters is morally defensible deliberation about values and valid individual consent; (iii) data privacy concerns cannot be reduced to other moral concerns and therefore deserve a specific, distinct protection. -/- Finally, because this is a thesis in applied ethics, I attempt an answer to the question as to how we ought to apply a value-based approach to practical data privacy concerns. I argue that a revised, three-pronged version of John Rawls’ reflective equilibrium, founded on the non-negotiable principle of respect for persons, is the best possible procedure to deliberate data privacy concerns in relation to other moral values. (shrink)

The ancient question of what a good life consists in is currently the focus of intense debate. There are two aspects to this debate: the first concerns how the concept of a good life is to be understood; the second concerns what kinds of life fall within the extension of this concept. In this paper, I will attend only to the first, conceptual aspect and not to the second, substantive aspect. More precisely, I will address the preliminary, underlying question of (...) how to understand what it is in general for something to be good for someone, from which an understanding of the more particular concept of a good life may be derived. (shrink)

Meta-ethics without normative ethics is empty. In the current climate this hardly needs emphasis: since 1960 or so philosophers in the English-speaking world have put away their earlier reluctance to think about substantive moral issues. For a while, in fact, it seemed that normative ethics would completely dominate the scene in the way metaethics once did, but, happily, this situation has begun to change with the appearance of a stimulating and illuminating body of work on the rational basis of morality. (...) Even those philosophers most intent on solving first-order moral problems have begun to realize that, in the last analysis, normative ethics without meta-ethics is blind. (shrink)

This paper argues against Boydian synthetic moral naturalism by way of a critical examination at metasemantic issues. I first show that the Boydian metasemantics delivers determinate but wrong reference, building on an analysis by Schroeter and Schroeter. I then propose a diagnosis which says that the problem occurs due to an overly simple way of understanding externalist metasemantics, and that a proper understanding requires us to pay heed to the higher-level constraints set by the speakers’ deferring pattern. That in turn (...) is restricted by what I call reference defeaters, which are essentially some central beliefs held by the speakers and are so called because they have the power to defeat reference of a term to certain things. Applying the notion to moral discourse, I argue that the entrenched is/ought distinction held by the ordinary speakers defeats the reference of the moral predicates to natural properties, that is, synthetic moral naturalism is not true. (shrink)

I defend the view that strong psychophysical superveniences is necessary and sufficient to explain the causal efficacy of mental properties. I employ factual and counterfactual conditionals as defeasible criteria of causal efficacy. And I also deal with certain problems arising from disjunctive and conjunctive properties.

I explore the Because Constraint—the idea that moral facts depend on natural facts and that moral judgements ought to respect the dependence of moral facts on natural facts. I consider several issues concerning its clarification and importance.

Utilitarianism focuses on the optimization of personal well being in ways that seems to make the practice of medicine irrelevant to the well being of the practitioners, unless given external incentives such as money or honor. Care based on indirect incentives is considered inferior to care motivated internally. This leads to the paradox of utilitarian care. Following Nozick's conceptual Pleasure Machine it is argued that in addition to the promotion of personal well being, people care about fulfilling their well being (...) in a world which is real, just, good, and beautiful. Complete mechanization of social and personal life in accordance with a strict utilitarian regime is also incompatible with the kind of world people desire, even if it promises more fulfillments in terms of personal well being. This explains the so-called Taurek-Parfit paradox, according to which sometimes ethics seems “to count the numbers” and sometimes not. The very pursuit of utilitarianism does not contribute to any personal life plan. The helping professions make the world a better place for us to live in, even though they do not necessarily bear directly on the well being of any individual other than the recipients of care. This resolves the paradox of utilitarian care. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop the concept of episodic value, which describes a form of value connected to a particular object or individual expressed and delivered through a narrative. Narrative can bestow special kinds of value on objects, as exemplified by auction articles or museum collections. To clarify the nature of episodic value, I show how the notion of episodic value fundamentally differs from the traditional axiological picture. I extend my discussion of episodic value to argue that the notion of (...) episodic value readily incorporates the role of narratives into the construction of identity in personal and social contexts. My main contentions are twofold. First, events or experiences from our personal narratives are episodically valuable insofar as they contribute to shaping our narrative identities. Second, when engaged in a collective action, we write a joint narrative with other participants that confers special meanings on the actions of each participant. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to assess the relationship between anti-physicalist arguments in the philosophy of mind and anti-naturalist arguments in metaethics, and to show how the literature on the mind-body problem can inform metaethics. Among the questions we will consider are: (1) whether a moral parallel of the knowledge argument can be constructed to create trouble for naturalists, (2) the relationship between such a "Moral Knowledge Argument" and the familiar Open Question Argument, and (3) how naturalists can respond (...) to the Moral Twin Earth argument. We will give particular attention to recent arguments in the philosophy of mind that aim to show that anti-physicalist arguments can be defused by acknowledging a distinctive kind of conceptual dualism between the phenomenal and the physical. This tactic for evading anti-physicalist arguments has come to be known as the Phenomenal Concept Strategy. We will propose a metaethical version of this strategy, which we shall call the `Moral Concept Strategy'. We suggest that the Moral Concept Strategy offers the most promising way out of these anti-naturalist arguments, though significant challenges remain. (shrink)

According to a common objection to epistemological naturalism, no empirical, scientific theory of knowledge can be normative in the way epistemological theories need to be. In response, such naturalists as W.V. Quine have claimed naturalized epistemology can be normative by emulating engineering disciplines and addressing the relations of causal efficacy between our cognitive means and ends. This paper evaluates that "engineering reply" and finds it a mixed success. Based on consideration of what it might mean to call a theory "normative," (...) seven versions of the normativity objection to epistemological naturalism are formulated. The engineering reply alone is sufficient to answer only the four least sophisticated versions. To answer the others, naturalists must draw on more resources than their engineering reply alone provides. (shrink)

This paper argues that we should replace the common classification of theories of welfare into the categories of hedonism, desire theories, and objective list theories. The tripartite classification is objectionable because it is unduly narrow and it is confusing: it excludes theories of welfare that are worthy of discussion, and it obscures important distinctions. In its place, the paper proposes two independent classifications corresponding to a distinction emphasised by Roger Crisp: a four-category classification of enumerative theories (about which items constitute (...) welfare), and a four-category classification of explanatory theories (about why these items constitute welfare). (shrink)

How do business leaders make ethical decisions? Given the significant and wide-spread impact of business people’s decisions on multiple constituents, how they make decisions matters. Unethical decisions harm the decision makers themselves as well as others, whereas ethical decisions have the opposite effect. Based on data from a study on strategic decision making by 16 effective chief executive officers, I propose a model for ethical decision making in business in which reasoning and intuition interact through forming, recalling, and applying moral (...) principles necessary for long-term success in business. Following the CEOs in the study, I employ a relatively new theory, rational egoism, as the substantive content of the model and argue it to be consistent with the requirements of long-term business success. Besides explaining the processes of forming and applying principles, I briefly describe rational egoism and illustrate the model with a contemporary moral dilemma of downsizing. I conclude with implications for further research and ethical decision making in business. (shrink)

This paper argues that the principle of necessary identity (f)(g)(f=g then necessarily f=g) cannot be maintained, At least in second order form. A paradox based upon scientific definitional practice is introduced to demonstrate this. A non-Fregean reading of standard contingent identity semantics is provided to explain how such 'definition breaking' works.

This essay offers a defence of the non-cognitivist approach to the interpretation of moral judgments as disguised imperatives corresponding to social rules. It addresses the body of criticism that faced R. M. Hare, and that currently faces moral anti-realists, on two levels, by providing a full semantic analysis of evaluative judgments and by arguing that anti-realism is compatible with moral aspiration despite the non-existence of obligations as the externalist imagines them. A moral judgment consists of separate descriptive and prescriptive components (...) and is to be understood as a declarative statement prefaced by an 'ideality operator'. Moral beliefs are genuinely representational, but their truth conditions can only be stated with reference to imaginary ideal worlds. Moral judgments are neither confirmed nor verified, but alternative moral positions are preferentially endorsed and adopted by individual agents on the basis of their perceived all-things-considered optimality. High aspiration moralities are normally very costly to agents in terms of their prudential and aesthetic interests, but they are theoretically as eligible as the adoption of other, less demanding sets of rules. (shrink)

The naturalistic fallacy is mentionedfrequently by evolutionary psychologists as anerroneous way of thinking about the ethicalimplications of evolved behaviors. However,evolutionary psychologists are themselvesconfused about the naturalistic fallacy and useit inappropriately to forestall legitimateethical discussion. We briefly review what thenaturalistic fallacy is and why it is misusedby evolutionary psychologists. Then we attemptto show how the ethical implications of evolvedbehaviors can be discussed constructivelywithout impeding evolutionary psychologicalresearch. A key is to show how ethicalbehaviors, in addition to unethical behaviors,can evolve by natural selection.

I explore the relationship between a prominent analysis of intrinsic properties, due to Langton and Lewis, and the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. As I argue, the analysis faces a puzzle. The full analysis classifies certain properties of entangled particles as intrinsic. But when combined with an extremely plausible assumption about duplication, the main part of the analysis classifies those properties as non-intrinsic instead. I conclude that much of Lewis’s metaphysics is in trouble: Lewis based many of his metaphysical views—his thesis (...) of Humean supervenience, for instance, and his account of recombination—on an analysis of intrinsicality which does not sit well with quantum phenomena. (shrink)

To naturalize religion, we must identify what religion is, and what aspects of it we are trying to explain. In this paper, religious social institutional behavior is the explanatory target, and an explanatory hypothesis based on shared primate social dominance psychology is given. The argument is that various religious features, including the high status afforded the religious, and the high status afforded to deities, are an expression of this social dominance psychology in a context for which it did not evolve: (...) high-density populations made possible by agriculture. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore how to accommodate non-consequentialist constraints with a broadly value-based conception of reasons for action. It turns out that there are two grades of non-consequentialist constraints. The first grade involves attaching ethical importance to such distinctions as the doing/allowing distinction, and the distinction between intended and unintended consequences that is central to the Doctrine of Double Effect. However, at least within the value-based framework, this first grade is insufficient to explain rights, which ground weighty reasons against (...) infringing those rights that need not be outweighed even when infringing those rights is necessary for preventing a larger number of people from having their rights infringed in the same way. Such rights form a second grade of non-consequentialist constraints: within the value-based framework, this second grade is best explained in terms of the intrinsically relational values and disvalues of interpersonal interactions and relationships. (shrink)

Larry Temkin has shown that Derek Parfit’s well-known Mere Addition Paradox suggests a powerful argument for the intransitivity of the relation “better than.” The crux of the argument is the view that equality is essentially comparative, according to which the same inequality can be evaluated differently depending on what it is being compared to. The comparative view of equality should be rejected, I argue, and hence so too this argument for intransitivity.

Surprisingly, many ethical realists and anti-realists, naturalists and not, all accept some version of the following normative appeal to the natural (NAN): evaluative and normative facts hold solely in virtue of natural facts, where their naturalness is part of what fits them for the job. This paper argues not that NAN is false but that NAN has no adequate non-parochial justification (a justification that relies only on premises which can be accepted by more or less everyone who accepts NAN) to (...) back up this consensus. I show that we cannot establish versions of NAN which are interesting in their own right (and not merely as instances of a general naturalistic ontology) by appealing to the nature of natural properties or the kind of in-virtue-of relation to which NAN refers, plus other plausible nonparochial assumptions. On the way, I distinguish different types of 'in virtue of claims. I conclude by arguing that the way in which assessment of meta-ethical hypotheses is theory-dependent predicts the failure of non-parochial justifications of NAN. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In the English language contemporary literature, there are mainly two philosophical approaches to interpretation of the Zhuangzi’s Happy Fish debate. The two approaches to the famous passage are the logical, which focuses on analysis, and the non-analytic, which focuses on context. The approaches are in tension with one another since one implies that the other is wrong. This paper suggests that the view that Zhuangzi holds an externalist view of justification according to the debate (here abbreviated as ZE) reconciles (...) the approaches. ZE is the interpretation that says that in the debate, Zhuangzi is an externalist, in particular, a process reliabilist, because he takes sense perception as means to attaining knowledge. ZE reconciles the two approaches in that in each of them ZE is implicit. Ultimately, this paper not only offers a perspective about the two approaches, it also offers a view about the debate. (shrink)

Other-perspective taking, distancing, time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion highly affect decision-making. Even though they influence each other, so far these cognitive processes have been unrelated or only partly related to each other in neuroscience. This article proposes a philosophical interpretation of these cognitive processes that is elaborated in the updated theory of Adam Smith’s prudence. The UTSP is inspired by Smith’s account of prudence and is in line with the neuroscientific and behavioral studies on OPT, distancing, (...) time discounting as well as risk and loss aversion. The UTSP represents a framework aiming to interpret and connect these cognitive processes and providing a consistent and empirically sound account of a “Smithianly” prudent style of decision-making. The two pillars of the UTSP are the shift of perspective in space and time and loss aversion. On the basis of this theory, a normative updated theory of Smithian prudence is outlined. The latter is useful for moral philosophy for two reasons: firstly, according to preliminary evidence, it is effective in guiding the agent in decisional contexts in which her well-being is at stake and she can affect other people with her actions. Secondly, since the NUTSP is based on neuroscientific findings on decision-making, it has a sound empirical basis that prevents a source of alienation for the agent. (shrink)

G.E. Moore’s open question arguments have been targeted by unsympathetic philosophers for close to a century. Perhaps the most serious criticism directed towards Moore’s OQAs is that they be...

Many philosophers believe that the extensions of evaluative terms and concepts aren’t unified under non-evaluative similarity relations and that this “shapelessness thesis” (ST) has significant metaethical implications regarding non-cognitivism, ethical naturalism, moral particularism, thick concepts and more. ST is typically offered as an explanation of why evaluative classifications appear to “outrun” classifications specifiable in independently intelligible non-evaluative terms. This paper argues that both ST and the outrunning point used to motivate it can be explained on the basis of more general (...) factors that have nothing in particular to do with being evaluative. If so, there is no reason to expect ST to carry the sorts of metaethical implications that get attributed to it. I also show that my main argument is robust across certain complications that are raised by the context-sensitivity of many evaluative terms but have so far been ignored in discussions of ST and related matters. (shrink)

R.M. Hare’s two-level utilitarianism provides a useful framework for understanding the evolution of codes of professional ethics. From a Harean perspective, the codes reflect both the fact that members of various professions face special kinds of ethically charged situations in the normal course of their work, and the need for people in special roles to acquire various habits of thought and action. This highlights the role of virtue in professional ethics and provides guidance to professional societies when considering modifications to (...) their codes. From a Harean perspective, a professional society should ask both “Are there kinds of situations that members of this profession will normally encounter which members of other professions and/or the general public will not?” and “What habits of thought and action would it be good for individuals encountering such situations to have?”. (shrink)

Dans cet article sont examinées les positions de Jeremy Bentham et Peter Singer sur la question animale. L’utilitarisme benthamien, un utilitarisme de l’acte associé à une théorie hédoniste de la valeur et à une théorie juridique du bénéfice, promeut la création d’un droit légal des animaux à ne pas être l’objet d’un excès de cruauté ; mais il aboutit aussi à certaines conséquences contre-intuitives pour le meurtre humain et animal. L’utilitarisme singerien, dont la structure a connu plusieurs changements substantiels depuis (...) 1975, relève pour sa part d’un utilitarisme total à double niveau, associé à une théorie idéalo-préférentielle ou impersonnalo-préférentielle de la valeur. Singer défend l’idée que nous ne devrions pas faire tuer d’animaux pour notre consommation. Le caractère en partie idéal ou impersonnel de sa théorie de la valeur l’amène à s’éloigner des formes classiques de l’utilitarisme en même temps qu’il lui permet d’échapper aux conséquences contre-intuitives auxquelles Bentham doit faire face. (shrink)

Human behavioral ecology (HBE) began as an attempt to explain human economic, reproductive, and social behavior using neodarwinian theory in concert with theory from ecology and economics, and ethnographic methods. HBE has addressed subsistence decision-making, cooperation, life history trade-offs, parental investment, mate choice, and marriage strategies among hunter-gatherers, herders, peasants, and wage earners in rural and urban settings throughout the world. Despite our rich insights into human behavior, HBE has very rarely been used as a tool to help the people (...) with whom we work. This article introduces a special issue of Human Nature which explores the application of HBE to significant world issues through the design and critique of public policy and international development projects. The articles by Tucker, Shenk, Leonetti et al., and Neil were presented at the 104th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in Washington, D.C., in December 2005, in the first organized session of the nascent Evolutionary Anthropology Section (EAS). We conclude this introduction by summarizing some theoretical challenges to applying HBE, and ways in which evolutionary anthropologists can contribute to solving tough world issues. (shrink)

Mooreans claim that intrinsic goodness is a conceptual primitive. Fitting-attitude theorists object: they say that goodness should be defined in terms of what it is fitting for us to value. The Moorean view is often considered a relic; the fitting-attitude view is increasingly popular. I think this unfortunate. Though the fitting-attitude analysis is powerful, the Moorean view is still attractive. I dedicate myself to the influential arguments marshaled against Moore’s program, including those advanced by Scanlon, Stratton-Lake and Hooker, and Jacobson; (...) I argue that they do not succeed. (shrink)

In the third and subsequent editions of Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Tom Beauchamp and James Childress articulate a series of ethical norms that they regard as “derived” from, and hence carrying, the “authority” of the common morality. Although Beauchamp and Childress do not claim that biomedical norms they derive from the common morality automatically become constituents of the common morality, or that every detail of their account carries the authority of the common morality, they regard these derived norms as provisionally (...) binding in a way that does not apply to the norms of mere “particular” moralities. Whereas particular moralities “do not bind other persons or communities,” Beauchamp and Childress have designed the norms of Principles of Biomedical Ethics to be “extensions” of the common morality that universally binds other persons and communities. Beauchamp and Childress seem to hold that (1) the norms they articulate in Principles of Biomedical Ethics are derived in an objective way from the common morality, and also that by virtue of being so derived (2) they carry a moral authority that objectively exceeds the authority of norms constituting particular moralities. My thesis in this essay is that both of these claims are false. (shrink)

This text focuses on selected basic arguments of libertarianism that could be found in certain debates on the moral issues of euthanasia and the application of moral fictionalism in bioethics. Firstly, I devote my article to the criticism of libertarian arguments (as one of the dominant discourses related to the debate over euthanasia) in a wider perspective of moral philosophy. The article is based on an approach that understands morality as a kind of social practice and the primary goal is (...) to grasp the key theoretical concepts which are included in the mechanism for identifying and assessing our moral intuitions. This text is primarily an analysis of selected arguments of current normative theories of libertarianism on two levels: first it examines the idea of self-ownership in connection with certain debates over euthanasia, while the latter part of the article concerns an analysis of the critique of libertarian arguments and a comparison of the alternative arguments of moral fictionalism. The last part of this text, focusing on moral fictionalism and its general application in bioethics, is the core of the article. (shrink)

Kantian constructivists locate the source of normativity in the rational nature of valuing agents. Some further argue that accepting this premise thereby commits one to accepting the intrinsic or unconditioned value of rational nature itself. Whereas much of the critical literature on this “regress on conditions” argument has focused either on the cogency of the inference from the value-conferring capacity of the will to the unconditional value of that capacity itself or on the plausibility of the initial constructivist premise, my (...) aim is to press the argument from a different direction by asking just how Kantian the constructivist needs to be in order to support a regress on conditions argument. Specifically, I maintain that the argument succeeds only given a full-fledged Kantian moral psychology, including a presupposition of transcendental freedom. If correct, this could have implications regarding the compatibility of Kantian ethics and philosophic naturalism. (shrink)

As a first pass, physicalism is the doctrine that there is nothing over and above the physical. Much recent philosophical work has been devoted to spelling out what this means in more rigorous terms and to assessing the case for the view. What follows is a survey of such work. I begin by looking at competing accounts of what is meant by nothing over and above and then turn to how the physical should be understood. Once we are clear on (...) the options for formulating the physicalist thesis, we will look at the leading argument for the view. Along the way, I will suggest avenues for further exploration. (shrink)