In the middle of the twentieth century, many philosophers came to believe that the problem of morally justifying punishment had finally been solved. Defended most famously by Hart and Rawls, the so-called “Mixed Theory” of punishment claimed that justifying punishment required recognizing that the utilitarian and retributive theories were in fact answers to two different questions: utilitarianism answered the question of why we have punishment as an institution, while retribution answered the question of how to punish individual wrongdoers. We could (...) thus reconcile the two great competing theories of punishment, and show how they were both right and not in conflict at all. Unfortunately, it gradually became apparent that the solution would not work. This essay attempts to set out thereasons why the Mixed Theory was bound to fail, and why the problem of reconciling the utilitarian and retributive goals remains with us. -/- In this paper, Stephen Kershnar argues that character alone grounds desert. He begins by arguing that desert is grounded by a person’s character, action, or both. In the second section, He defends the claim that character grounds desert. His argument rests on intuitions that other things being equal, it would be intrinsically better for virtuous persons to flourish and vicious persons suffer than vice versa. In the third section, he argues that actions do not ground desert. He gives three arguments in support of this claim. First, there is little intuitive support for this supposed ground and to the extent that there is support, it is undermined when we consider what causes character and acts to diverge. Second, this type of desert doesn’t fit with a unifying account of the different aspects of intrinsic value. Third, the most plausible version of act-based desert leaves it unclear why acts should ground desert. (shrink)

It seems that Derrida objects to Gadamer's hermeneutics on the grounds that it is, as Gadamer puts it, "a discipline that guarantees truth," taking it as something that partakes in the "metaphysics of presence." However, this criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of hermeneutic truth. It would be on target if hermeneutic truth were some kind of universal condition of correspondence. Gadamer has tried to correct this conception of hermeneutic truth in his various attempts at opening a (...) dialogue with deconstructionism. In this article, the author argues that in a possible debate between hermeneutics and deconstructionism, there are good reasons to judge in favor of the former. (shrink)

It is now widely accepted that experiments using human subjects without their informed consent is unethical. However, in certain kinds of experiment, such as placebo trials, informing participants about what will happen will invalidate research results. Some authors have suggested that the principle of informed consent has to be modified, others claim that ethical concerns can be set aside in the interest of advancing medical research. I argue that these attempts at justifying withholding information from participants are inadequate. Drawing from (...) a debate in epistemology between so-called internalists and externalists, I claim thatwe can know on a different level that we are not to know certain details about an experiment, and argue that consent given on the basis of such knowledge is informed consent and is ethically sufficient. (shrink)

In this paper I want to posit and defend the idea of a moral contract that one makes with oneself. Such an idea is not as absurd as it would at first appear to be. On the contrary, moral reasoning in practice can be sensibly interpreted in terms of contracting oneself to behave in a certain way. Indeed, the idea of the moral self can be seen as a fundamental element in any moral system.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:26. DAVID HUME ON REASON, PASSIONS AND MORALS Perhaps the most notorious passage in Hume's Treatise is the one that concerns the relative roles of reason and passions, where he says: Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions (T 415). This psychology of action is the foundation of Hume's moral theory, wherein we find his two other notorious dicta, one being!.¡oral distinctions cannot be (...) derived from reason, and the other, Ought cannot be derived from is. Many commentators have interpreted Hume as saying that reason plays no role in the making of moral judgments, and, while not taking the rationalistic line, criticized him for not giving reason its proper due. The aim of this paper is to show that Hume's primary concern is to argue against the rationalist position which takes reason to be sufficient (always or sometimes) to move one to act, and to give rise to moral judgments. I wish to show that Hume is only concerned with dismissing the claim that reason could be a sufficient condition, not that it is a necessary one. Indeed, Hume could be interpreted as saying that reason is no less important than passions in shaping human conduct, anc in the area of inorai conduct, there can be no moral judgments without the work of reason. At the same time, however, passions remain the prime mover; reason does not move us to act (generally, hence morally). 1 shall try to show that the dictum '¿¡oral distinctions cannot be derived from reason' is essentially correct, but its being correct in no way shows that reason is not a necessary element of moral distinctions. 27. Before discussing the views of some critics of Hume's moral theory, it is important to clear up one source of misunderstanding that lies in Hume's discussion of the psychology of action. When Hume says that reason is the slave of passions, he does not say thereby that reason is unimportant. He is saying merely that reason alone does not move one to act. The force that propels one to action is the passion, whether it be love, or anger, or pride, or envy, or fear, or desire. Reason alone does not provide the motive. However, it is reason that does the groundwork, analyzing facts, perceiving relations, and drawing conclusions, all of which go to determine which action to perform, but the action will not be performed unless one of the passions is also present. Just because reason is the slave does not indicate that its work is not relevant. To extend the slavery metaphor, we may observe that slave owners supported slavery for the very reason that the slave's work was found indispensable; analogously, it must be observed that Hume is most unlikely to hole that reason plays no part in human action. To complete the analogy, we should say that while much could be achieved with slaves, it was the masters who conceived the plan, and the masters must rank higher in the causal order. We may observe further that greater achievement could be had by treating slaves properly, not overworking them, and not ill-treating them. If reason is the slave, it will be in our interest to cultivate it, sharpen it, and use it always and to the full. This could be inferred from HuTr.e's discussion of the understanding in Book 1 of the Treatise. indeed, in the conclusion of Book I, Hume points out forcefully that we contradict ourselves if we hold that no refin'd or elaborate reasoning is ever to be 28. receiv'd (T 268). For it is only through reasoning that we arrive at any such conclusion. He goes on to say: Very refin'd reflections have little or no influence upon us; and yet we do not, and cannot establish it for a rule, that they ought not to have any influence; which implies a manifest contradiction (T268). There cannot be a clearer demonstration that it is not the case that Hume fails to give reason its proper due. Later, I shall cite further evidence for this in relation specifically to the role of reason in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:141. ON HARRISON'S INTERPRETATION OF TREATISE III ii 1 In Treatise III ii 1, Hume is concerned to argue that justice is an artificial virtue, not a natural one. Commenting on this Section, Jonathan Harrison has pointed out that, on his reading and interpretation, Hume's argument runs into many difficulties. I shall argue in this paper that a more sympathetic reading of Hume will show that his argument is (...) a whole lot more plausible than Harrison takes it to be. Harrison raises many separate points, but instead of taking up these points one by one, I shall concentrate on one that seems to be most serious, and to lie at the heart of his criticism. The point is as follows. Hume's argument, designed to prove that justice is an artificial virtue as opposed to natural, proves too much: '(It) proves that justice is not a virtue at all' (HTJ 6). According to Harrison, Hume's first premise is [1] That actions are not duties unless there is in the mind of man a motive which normally prompts him to perform them, and the second premise is [2] That there is in the mind of man no motive which normally prompts him to perform just actions ( ibid. ) Harrison goes on to argue that we can derive from these two premises the 'embarrassing conclusion' that 'it cannot be a duty to perform just actions,' or that 'justice is not a virtue at all.' If Hume did indeed assert [1] and [2], the embarrassing conclusion would seem to follow. I shall argue that there is more than meets the eye as regards [1], and that Hume does not assert [2], 142. It would appear that in attributing [1] to Hume, Harrison has the following passage in mind: (It) may be establish'd as an undoubted maxim, that no action can be virtuous, or morally good, unless there be in human nature some motive to produce it, distinct from the sense of its morality (T 479). As I interpret this passage, the main point of the maxim is that the virtuousness of an action resides not in the sense of the morality of the action, as this is clearly circular, but in some other motive. This maxim does imply [1] above provided that we take Harrison's 'actions are not duties' to mean 'actions are not virtuous,' and his 'motive' to mean 'motive other than a sense of duty or morality.' In general, however, Harrison's way of rendering the passage above is quite unsatisfactory because it obscures what Hume means by 'duty' and what for Hume renders an action virtuous. To clarify matters, we need to look more closely at Hume's maxim. The first thing to note is that, while it is not clear what Harrison means by 'motive, ' Hume clearly uses the term 'motive' to mean 'passion.' Hume talks about 'the motives that produced' actions (T 477, my emphasis). Given Hume's psychology of actions, it is obvious that Hume is talking about the passions that produced actions. The sense of morality or duty, or the moral sentiment, is itself a passion which is capable of producing actions, and can do so 'without any other motive' (T 479). However, what Hume stresses in the passage above is that it is not the sense of duty that gives an action a good moral character, but some other motive, or passion. Hume is saying that the sense of duty is a derivative passion: an action has to 143, be established as virtuous in the first place for there to be a sense of duty concerning that action, or a sense of its morality; and it has to be so established by some other motive of which the sense of duty can be said to be derivative. Hume spells this out explicitly when he talks about humane actions. Thus, it is the humanity that 'bestows a merit on the actions' (T 478), not a regard to this merit, or a sense of duty concerning the actions, which is 'deriv'd from the antecedent principle of humanity' ( ibid., my emphasis). Now a sense of duty or obligation has to be distinguished from... (shrink)

It is argued that Hume has two notions of causation, one psychological and the other philosophical. Kant's criticism of Hume overlooks the fact that Hume's scepticism is directed only at the latter. At the psychological level, Hume could have accepted Kant's argument without abandoning his own account of causation. The real difference between Hume and Kant is that Hume is not and Kant is concerned with the conditions for the possibility of sense experience. Hume is concerned only with the philosophical (...) inferences we can draw, having experienced the world in a certain way. (shrink)

Emancipation is a legitimate human interest. It may be said that Foucault in his last works is concerned with putting forward a strategy for emancipation. The strategy consists in an aesthetic construction of the self. It is argued that this strategy ultimately fails and that, instead of retreating to the self, we need to return to the community level and to examine the rules of discourse that operate there. Contrary to Foucault's strategy, Habermas argues that what we need is a (...) communicative rationality capable of correcting discursive distortions. Coming from a different angle, Lyotard argues that what we need at the community level is a set of rules that prevent any one discourse totalizing all others. Such rules would ensure just gaming. Together, Lyotard and Habermas offer us an ethics that has the potential to serve the human interest in emancipation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:372 THE ROLE OF REASON IN HUME'S THEORY OF BELIEF Much has been written on Hume's theory of belief, yet problems of interpretation remain as serious as ever. The most pervasive and persistent problem relates to the role reason plays in Hume's conception of belief. When Hume says that belief is a matter of feeling, does he mean to say that reason has nothing to do with it, or (...) that belief is not a matter of choice? Does he imply that one cannot be blamed for believing as one does? The view that belief is unavoidable and not a matter of choice, and its implication, seem counter-intuitive, if not drastic. Are there grounds for attributing such a view to Hume? There is indeed a tendency to interpret Hume as saying that reason plays no role, not just in the moral sphere, but in the understanding as well. Thus, Barry Stroud claims that "in Hume's hands the denigration of the role of reason and the corresponding elevation of feeling and sentiment is generalized into a total theory of man." Elsewhere I have argued against this view insofar as it relates 2 to Hume's moral theory. But the dismay at Hume's (alleged) denigration of reason is even greater in the case of belief. For instance, Antony Flew considers Hume's view that belief is "a species of natural instincts, which no reason or process of the thought and understanding is able either to produce or to prevent" as a "drastic and disastrous conclusion." According to Flew, one drastic and disastrous consequence of such a view is that "insofar as belief really is necessary and unavoidable we can neither criticize others for the irrationality of their convictions nor retain any 4 confidence about the rationality of our own." 373 In a more sympathetic reading of Hume, J. A. Passmore has cited evidence to show that Hume acknowledges that belief can be a matter of choice, 5 and thus there can be an ethics of belief. However, in doing so Passmore presents an inconsistency in Hume's view of belief, and does nothing to account for this inconsistency. Barbara Winters also sees inconsistencies, or paradoxes, in Hume's treatment, not only within Book I of the Treatise, but also between it and the other two Books (and between the Enquiries). Her resolution of the paradox is the suggestion that there are two conceptions of reason in Hume, the "traditional" and the "naturalistic," the former "plays no role in our acquisition of fundamental beliefs," and the latter is such that we do indeed "arrive at our beliefs through reasoning." In this paper I wish to argue that there are no inconsistencies, or paradoxes, in Hume's treatment of belief, and that his view is neither drastic nor disastrous. I wish to show that there is no 'denigration' of reason, " and that while belief is a matter of feeling, it is also, to an important degree, a matter of choice. In promoting the "undoubted truth, that belief is nothing but a peculiar feeling," Hume does write in such a way as to encourage the interpretation that he subordinates the role of reason to feelings (or sentiments, or passions), or worse, that he denigrates the role of reason. He tells us that belief is not "some new idea, such as that of reality or existence, which we join to the simple conception of an object" (T 623). If it were, "it wou'd be in a man's power to believe what he 374 pleas 'd" (T 624), as the mind can mix or join any two ideas. Hume tells us that we can easily "discover by experiments" that belief "arises immediately, without any new operation of the reason or imagination" (T 102). The widely quoted sentence is the following: "When the mind... passes from the idea or impression of one object to the idea or belief of another, it is not determin'd by reason..." (T 92). These and other statements clearly encourage the interpretation that belief does not arise from reason, or indeed that reason has nothing to do with belief. Depending on how far one sees the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:39 HUME'S JUSTICE AS A COLLECTIVE GOOD David Hume would probably regard his 'system of morals' as the most important part of his treatise of human nature. Yet his moral theory, particularly his theory of justice, continues to baffle commentators. Many have found it difficult to follow his line of reasoning to the conclusions that it is an artificial virtue to obey the rules of justice, and that such (...) rules command our respect even though we do not have any natural tendencies to respect them. The most troubling claim seems to be the claim that justice is ultimately based on self-interest, the motive that, on the surface at least, tends to induce people to ignore justice, particularly justice of the kind Hume is talking about. Jonathan Harrison, for instance, goes through a series of examples in an attempt to get close to Hume's meaning. In this paper I wish to argue that by justice Hume has in mind something very much like what modern economists call collective good. In the economic theory of public finance, which was born in the late Fifties, a distinction is made between collective goods and private goods. I wish to argue that this distinction can be employed to elucidate the nature of Hume's concept of justice, as well as to pinpoint the source of the moral force making justice a virtue rather than just a matter of prudence. I Most goods (and services) bought and sold in any economy have the following characteristics. First, as one person purchases (and consumes) a quantity of a particular good, there is less of it available for others to consume (that is, before more is produced). If the market is cleared (i.e. all that is produced is bought and sold), the total production or supply (X_, say) is the sum of individual purchases (X =X +X + etc.). 40 Second, the benefit of consumption is confined largely to the person who consumes the good. The overall benefit is said to be divisible among consumers. Third, the cost of production is also divisible and can be calculated for each unit of the good (which is not to say that such calculation can be easily or accurately carried out). Goods such as bread and butter, shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages, and so on, are of this nature. There are also certain goods and services which do not have these characteristics. John Stuart Mill was actually the first to notice the fact that a good such as a lighthouse, once provided, confers benefits equally on all "consumers" (i.e. ships that navigate by it). Unlike the goods in the class above, the amount of service generated by a lighthouse does not diminish as more of it is "consumed." The total X available is actually what is available for each and every consumer, so that X =X =X = etc. Once available, the benefit is not confined to any one user: to make it available to one user is to make it available to other users. The overall benefit is not divisible among consumers. Finally, it is often meaningless to speak of units of the good, hence meaningless to speak of cost per unit. Costs are also not divisible. In this class of goods we can include, in addition to the lighthouse, national defense, clean air, pleasant surroundings, etc. In the economic literature of public finance, these goods are referred to as 2 collective goods (and those above, private goods). The nature of collective goods poses a number of problems. One is that it is difficult to extract payments from consumers, once the good has been provided. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to exclude those who refuse to pay from consuming the good or service, it is unrealistic to expect any payments, or full payments. This being so, no private entrepreneur would be willing to produce collective goods. Generally, 41 they will not be provided unless there is some collective effort, hence the name collective goods. The second problem, as economists see it, is to work out the optimum level of production. This turns out to be theoretically simple, assuming that potential consumers truly reveal their... (shrink)

It is now widely accepted that experiments using human subjects without their informed consent is unethical. However, in certain kinds of experiment, such as placebo trials, informing participants about what will happen will invalidate research results. Some authors have suggested that the principle of informed consent has to be modified, others claim that ethical concerns can be set aside in the interest of advancing medical research. I argue that these attempts at justifying withholding information from participants are inadequate. Drawing from (...) a debate in epistemology between so-called internalists and externalists, I claim thatwe can know on a different level that we are not to know certain details about an experiment, and argue that consent given on the basis of such knowledge is informed consent and is ethically sufficient. (shrink)

After the sharp confiicts between the government and the medical unions in 1964 on the occasion of the health insurance reform, which introduced the «agreement system» for medical fees and repayments, a form of bargaining economy has developed in Belgian health care, with sick funds and medical unions as the major parties. This «Pax Medica» seems to be threatened by a series of financially motivated government measures aimed at reducing the medical group's professional autonomy and dominance. This article discusses the (...) historical context, the parties involved and the development of these confiicts, pointing out the striking analogy with those of 1964, particularly as far as the unions strategy is concerned. The present state of affairs suggests not a threatening of the «Pax Medica», but rather a stabilization of the established power relationship between government, sick funds and medical unions, which will respect and continue the rules of democratic compromise. (shrink)

It is argued that Nuyen's objectivist perspective on the method of the natural sciences is misleading, failing to capture its primary feature: maintaining a separation between two levels--a level takes as observations and data and a level taken as conceptually integrated theory--and at the same time working between these two levels in a manner that draws them together. Appropriately articulated this feature gives a perspective that (i) sees in the natural sciences an essential relation between knower and known similar (...) to that attributed by Nuyen to the human sciences; and (ii) specifies the function of generalization in the natural sciences in a manner that specifies crucial questions challenging Nuyen's contrast of the natural and human sciences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aristotle on the Etruscan Robbers:A Core Text of "Aristotelian Dualism"Abraham P. Bos (bio)1. A Non-Platonic Dualism in Aristotle's Lost WorksThe Soul of a Mortal on Earth is not "At Home," says Aristotle in his dialogue Eudemus. The story about the mantic dream of the expatriate Eudemus and his expectation that he "will return home"1 is well known. It makes clear that, in Aristotle's view, the death of the human (...) individual should be interpreted as the soul's "return to its homeland."2 This is strongly suggested by "the revelation of Silenus" which Plutarch (first century CE) passes down in a literal quotation from the Eudemus.3 It contains the theme of human life on earth as a punishment (timôria). The motif of human life as a punishment is central to two texts by Iamblichus (250-325 CE) and Augustine (354-430 CE), which are usually connected with Aristotle's Protrepticus.4 I want to examine these texts in more detail here. My intention in the following exposition is to propose a non-Platonistic explanation of these texts. In my opinion they have wrongly been read as testimonies of a "Platonistic" phase in Aristotle. The existence of such a phase in Aristotle's development has never been proved. Besides, the interpretation of these texts suffered from the fact that [End Page 289] Aristotle's De anima had also been explained in an unhistorical way since Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century CE.2. Revising the Modern View of AristotleWe have to make a different assessment of Aristotle's contribution to the discussion on the soul compared with what was current until recently. For after W. Jaeger5 and F. Nuyens6, modern scholars became inclined to leave Aristotle's dialogues out of consideration, because they regarded them as "Platonizing." But a fundamental correction is necessary on this point.7 Jaeger led modern Aristotle studies in a wrong direction by assuming a sharp distinction between Aristotle's lost dialogue Eudemus and his surviving treatise De anima. Although nowadays Jaeger's theory for many scholars is something of a dead horse, nevertheless a real alternative has not been proposed. We still have to get rid of the consequences of the Jaegerian paradigm and develop a unitary interpretation of Aristotle's entire oeuvre. Even more consistently than O. Gigon has already done,8 we should assume that Aristotle's lost works and his surviving biological writings and De anima did not propose two (or more) different psychological theories but one and the same. Because this one Aristotelian psychology was a non-Platonistic but nevertheless dualistic psychology, we have much more reason than could be recognized in the past to assume Aristotelian influence on this discussion.On one essential issue Aristotle disagreed with his teacher Plato: the soul,9 more particularly the indissoluble bond of the soul with a body. Aristotle radically and [End Page 290] consistently argued for the distinction between nous and psychè.10 For Aristotle the nous-in-act is always wholly incorporeal. But he considered it characteristic of the soul that it cannot carry out its functions "without body."11However, the crucial question is: what body does Aristotle mean when he says that the soul cannot perform its specific activities "without body"? Jaeger and Nuyens were wholly convinced that Aristotle was referring to the visible, external body of a human being, animal, or plant. Hence they saw a yawning gap between Aristotle's views in De anima and his position in the dialogue the Eudemus. In the Eudemus Aristotle had clearly argued that the soul can perform its own functions very well, indeed better, without the galling and oppressive visible body.12 But in De anima II 1, in his famous definition of "the soul," Aristotle says that the soul is inextricably bound up with a "sôma physikon organikon."13 Jaeger and Nuyens, following an almost unanimous tradition since Alexander of Aphrodisias in the third century CE, interpreted this sentence in the sense that the soul is the formal principle or entelechy of an "organic body" or a "natural body equipped with organs," i.e., the visible body... (shrink)

There is some limited contemporary scholarship on the theory of metaphor Kant appears to provide in his Critique of Judgment. The dominant interpretations that have emerged of Kant’s somewhat nascent account of metaphors are what I refer to as the symbolist view, which states that Kantian symbols should be viewed as Kantian metaphors, and the aesthetic idea view, which holds that Kant defi ned metaphors as aesthetic ideas . In this essay, I claim that the symbolist view of Kantian metaphors (...) is not plausible and that we should accept the aesthetic idea view in its stead. The jumping off points for my discussion are two fairly recent essays on the subject: A. T. Nuyen’s “The Kantian Theory of Metaphor” and Kirk Pillow’s “Jupiter’s Eagle and the Despot’s Hand Mill: Two Views of Metaphor in Kant.” Nuyen defends the symbolist view of Kantian metaphor and Pillow defends a split view, i.e., Pillow thinks Kant has a dual-aspect view of metaphor that can bear both the symbolist and the aesthetic idea interpretations. Although I make use of some of Pillow’s objections against the symbolist view, I conclude that both he and Nuyen are wrong in thinking that Kantian symbols have any relationship to Kantian metaphors at all. Lastly, I will provide my own positive account of Kant’s theory of metaphors as well as show how this debate affects Kant’s overallaesthetic theory. (shrink)

Sir David Ross, now nearing his eightieth birthday has published another of his valuable critical texts, provided, like its predecessors, with a commentary. He has made full use of the contributions of Drossaert Lulofs, Forster and Nuyens, at the same time judging them with an independent mind and adding views and arguments of his own. This book greatly facilitates the study of these physiological-psychological treatises which form so indispensable a supplement to the De Anima. --R. W.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:262 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Aristotle's Coneeplion of Moral Weakness. By James J. Walsh. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. Pp. viii ~- 199. $6.00.) The section of the Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristotle discusses at length the notion of akrasia or moral weakness (vii. 1-10) is one which as much as any other has evoked from philosophers a host of varying interpretations. One of the difficulties posed by Aristotle's (...) remarks is that of determining what exactly his assessment is of Socrates' denial that there is such a phenomenon as moral weakness. Aristotle, it may be recalled, asserts in one passage (1145b 27-28) that the Socratic view "plainly clashes with the facts" and in another (1147b 14-15) that "the view which Socrates sought to establish seems to hold." Walsh maintains that Aristotle supports the Socratic position and the purpose of his book is "to prove this case in a thorough way" (p. 2). Beginning his study naturally enough with a discussion of the Socratic denial of akrasia, Walsh stresses the elements of choice and decision in the Socratic moral philosophy in order to balance recent accounts, like that of John Gould (Plato's Ethics, pp. 3-46), which take the Socratic ~mar~}u~ to be practical, i.e., a knowing how, rather than a knowing that, and thus to make plain both that the Socratic denial of akrasia is something more than a tautology and that an intellectualist theory of motivation is possible within the Socratic framework. Such a theory is that presented in the Protagoras and in coniunction with his summary of it Walsh presents a clear account of Euripides' dramatization of moral weakness as a phenomenon in which reason is motivationally insufficient. It is this picture of akrasia which Aristotle seems to have had in mind when he charges that Socrates' view contradicts the facts; in any event, according to Walsh, the modifications made by Plato in the Socratic doctrine represent an attempt by him to do justice to the psychological realism inherent in the Euripidean image (p. 27). In Plato's eudeavor (never fully worked out) to resolve the problem of moral weakness, there are, in Walsh's judgment, three distinguishable stages, the gradation occurring in time as well as in philosophical adequacy (p. 28).The development revealed in these stages isaway from the view that reason and knowledge alone are motivationally sufficientfor good action towards the view that the cooperation of 0v~ and a certain habituation of the appetities are essential alliesif reason is to be efficaciousin moral action. Walsh's thesis, in terms of this historical background, is that Aristotle, with his "strong emphasis on choice and decision and hence...the indispensability of knowledge or beliefto action," is more closely aligned with Socrates and the early Plato than with the later Plato (p. 29). In a masterfully argued and substantially evidenced chapter, Walsh deals with questions pertinent to his interpretation of Aristotle's conception of akrasia. In order to deal more at length with this interpretation, I give here only the conclusions of that chapter. (1) The ostensible conflict between accounts of the morally weak man as one in whom an inner struggle occurs and the account of the morally weak man which implies that such a struggle is not in fact occurring, all to be found in the Aristotelian treatise, are not irreconciliable. (2) The discussion of akrasia in Book vii of the Nicomachean Ethics would fit equally well in the Eudemian Ethics and in the Nicornachean Ethics, though in different ways. In the former it would function as a contribution to the discussion of several ethical notions, especially that of the voluntary; in the latter it would function rather as an appendix to Aristotle's treatment of moral virtue. (3) The Eudemian Ethics was written by Aristotle and was written before the Nicomachean Ethics. The psychology of movement is not affected by the alleged (Nuyens) shift in Aristotle's concept of the soul-body relationship from an instrumentist phase (De Partibus Animalium and De Moto Animalium) to a hylemorphic phase (De Anima). (4) With regard to the analysis of akrasia, there is no basic difference between the moral psychology... (shrink)

This commentary explores how emotion fits in the dual-systems model of temporal cognition proposed by Hoerl & McCormack. The updating system would be affected by emotion via the attentional/arousal effect according to the attentional gate model. The reasoning system would be disrupted by emotion, especially for traumatic events. Time discrepancies described in the dual-systems model are also explained.

In his new book, Ames defends his interpretation of Confucian ethics as "role ethics" through a detailed examination of the Confucian vocabulary. Through such vocabulary, we can see that the Confucian self is a being that cultivates itself as it lives and matures in the context of the family and society. As role ethics, Confucianism is distinct from the Western tradition and its Greek roots. However, in order to highlight the contrast between Confucianism and the Western tradition, Ames paints a (...) picture of the latter that is a little misleading. As it turns out, there are many strands in the Western philosophical fabric, including those in the Continental tradition, where we can find conceptions of the self not all that different from what is in Confucianism as interpreted by Ames. Content Type Journal Article Pages 141-150 Authors A. T. Nuyen, National University of Singapore Journal Comparative and Continental Philosophy Online ISSN 1757-0646 Print ISSN 1757-0638 Journal Volume Volume 4 Journal Issue Volume 4, Number 1 / 2012. (shrink)

It is often supposed that Confucianism is opposed to the idea of equality insofar as the key ideals to which it is committed, such as meritocracy and li , are incompatible with equality. Sympathetic commentators typically defend Confucianism by saying that (a) the Confucian person is not a free-standing individual but a social being embedded in a social structure with different and unequal roles, and (b) social inequality has to be traded in for other values. This paper argues that in (...) advocating meritocracy, Confucianism does not abandon the idea of equality. Indeed, invoking Aristotle's account of equality in the Nicomachean Ethics , it can be argued that the unequal distribution of rights and benefits reflects one aspect of equality, namely the vertical aspect, or the unequal treatment of unequals. (shrink)

The Tao Te Ching begins enigmatically with the following lines:The Tao that can be told of is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary, by Roger T. Ames, The Chinese University Press and The University of Hawai’i Press, 2011, 332 pp., pb. $31.00, ISBN-13: 9780824835767. In his new book, Ames defends his interpretation of Confucian ethics as “role ethics” through a detailed examination of the Confucian vocabulary. Through such vocabulary, we can see that the Confucian self is a being that cultivates itself as it lives and matures in the context of the family and society. As role ethics, Confucianism (...) is distinct from the Western tradition and its Greek roots. However, in order to highlight the contrast between Confucianism and the Western tradition, Ames paints a picture of the latter that is a little misleading. As it turns out, there are many strands in the Western philosophical fabric, including those in the Continental tradition, where we can find conceptions of the self not all that different from what is in Confucianism as interpreted by Ames. (shrink)

Why did Levinas choose Isaiah 45:7 ("I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all that") as a superscription of his essay on evil? This article explores the role of evil in Levinas's religious ethics. The author discusses the structure of evil as revealed phenomenologically and juxtaposes it to the structure of subjectivity found in the writings of Levinas. The idea of the "ethical anthropic principle," modeled upon the cosmic anthropic principle, is then used to link evil to (...) the responsibility of the subject. The link is subsequently extended to God. This is proposed as one way of understanding the meaning of Isaiah 45:7. (shrink)

For many commentators, Confucian ethics is a kind of virtue ethics. However, there is enough textual evidence to suggest that it can be interpreted as an ethics based on rules, consequentialist as well as deontological. Against these views, I argue that Confucian ethics is based on the roles that make an agent the person he or she is. Further, I argue that in Confucianism the question of what it is that a person ought to do cannot be separated from the (...) question of what it is to be a person, and that the latter is answered in terms of the roles that arise from the network of social relationships in which a person stands. This does not mean that Confucian ethics is unlike anything found in Western philosophy. Indeed, I show that many Western thinkers have advanced a view of ethics similar to the Confucian ethics as I interpret it. (shrink)

How is the Confucian moral agent motivated to do what he or she judges to be right or good? In western philosophy, the answer to a question such as this depends on whether one is an internalist or externalist concerning moral motivation. In this article, I will first interpret Confucian ethics as role-based ethics and then argue that we can attribute to Confucianism a position on moral motivation that is neither internalist nor externalist but somewhere in between. I will then (...) illustrate my claim with my reading of Mencius 6A4, showing that it is superior to readings found in the literature, which typically assume that Mencius is an internalist. (shrink)

: Ronald Dworkin claims that if we are able to control our own biology, "our most settled convictions will . . . be undermined [and] we will be in a kind of moral free-fall." This is so because he takes moral convictions to be determined by the choices we make against a fixed biological background. It would seem that if Confucian ethics is grounded in ren xing (human nature) and if ren xing refers to a fixed biological background, then the (...) Confucian moral agent will be in a state of moral free-fall in the age of biological control—that is, if Dworkin is right. We can try to read ren xing as a creative process rather than a fixed nature, but any such reading inevitably grounds ren xing in something else that is biological. There is a way out for Confucians: the Dworkinian choice/chance distinction that is crucial for morality can be relocated away from the boundary between free choice and fixed biology to the boundary between the choices that we make and the fixed background of tradition. (shrink)

In Confucius' time, it was supposed that the sovereign had the mandate of heaven (tianming) to rule. Both Confucius and Mencius speak of a legitimate ruler as someone who has such a mandate and of a deposed ruler as someone who has lost it. Commentators have recently turned their attention to what the reference to the mandate of heaven means, as there are implications for the prospects of democracy in a Confucian state. The result is a wide spectrum of views. (...) In what might be called the liberal interpretation of the "mandate of heaven," Confucianism, or Mencius more specifically, allows for a popular revolt against a despotic ruler (hence for the possibility of democracy). In what might be called the conservative .. (shrink)

Kant claims in the religion that morality leads ineluctably and inevitably to religion. I argue that a moral agent can resist the movement towards religion and still remain moral. My strategy differs from many found in the literature insofar as I do not believe we need to attack the notion of the highest good. I argue instead that the promotion of the highest good can be a moral duty for a rational nonbeliever.

For many commentators, Confucian ethics is a kind of virtue ethics. However, there is enough textual evidence to suggest that it can be interpreted as an ethics based on rules, consequentialist as well as deontological. Against these views, I argue that Confucian ethics is based on the roles that make an agent the person he or she is. Further, I argue that in Confucianism the question of what it is that a person ought to do cannot be separated from the (...) question of what it is to be a person, and that the latter is answered in terms of the roles that arise from the network of social relationships in which a person stands. This does not mean that Confucian ethics is unlike anything found in Western philosophy. Indeed, I show that many Western thinkers have advanced a view of ethics similar to the Confucian ethics as I interpret it. (shrink)

Kant says that ideas have to be linked with sense experience to be meaningful. Rational ideas can be so linked via the "symbolical process" which is a process of creating a similarity (in rules of application) between an idea and its symbol. In this process the imagination goes beyond a concept (which is already linked with sense experience) to another concept in order to say something about the latter. This turns out to be the metaphorical process. For in every metaphor (...) there is an idea that receives expression in another, The latter already meaningful (i.E., Having a literal meaning). (shrink)

There is a common concern in some of the writings of Husserl and Gadamer. It is the concern to defend the legitimacy and dignity of the "human sciences." They argue from the methodological standpoint that the method of the natural sciences leaves out the relationship between the object of inquiry and the inquirer. This relationship plays a key role in "understanding," which is the concem of the human sciences. In explicating it, Husserl and Gadamer stress the role of the community (...) and the lifeworld as the context of understanding. Parallels to Husserl's and Gadamer's ideas can be found in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

The pace of globalisation has quickened considerably in the last ten to fifteen years. The process has yielded benefits but also resulted in conflicts. The benefits would be enhanced if the conflicts could be resolved. One source of conflicts is the desire to maintain cultural identity. Can Confucianism contribute to the working out of a universal global justice that can help resolve conflicts, particularly conflicts of cultural identities? Can it be part of the globalisation process without sacrificing its cultural identity? (...) I argue that it can on both counts and thus it is neither a villain blocking the progress of universal justice, a necessary condition for conflict-free globalisation, nor a helpless victim of that progress. (shrink)

The philosophers' tendency to characterize euthanasia in terms of either the right or the responsibility to die is, in some ways, problematic. Stepping outside of the analytic framework, the author draws out the implications of the ethics of Emmanuel Levinas for the euthanasia debate, tracing the way Levinas's position differs not only from the philosophical consensus but also from the theological one. The article shows that, according to Levinas, there is no ethical case for suicide or assisted suicide. Death cannot (...) be assumed or chosen-not only because suicide is a logically and metaphysically contradictory concept but also because in the choice of death ethical responsibility turns into irresponsibility. However, since Levinas holds that one must be responsible to the point of expiation, he can be said to approve certain actions that may have the consequence of hastening death. (shrink)

If the current trend is any guide, it looks like we are heading towards a future in which relationships are determined and regulated by rights. In addition to the ?universal human rights? declared soon after the Second World War, other ?universal rights? have been declared and added to the list of rights, such as the rights of the child, the rights of indigenous peoples and so on. A question arises as to whether a world in which our relationships are governed (...) entirely on the basis of rights is an appealing one. I want to suggest that if our common future is regulated entirely by rights then we are moving in the wrong direction. By contrast, Tu Wei-ming believes that if Confucianism flourishes, we will move towards a society based on trust rather than rights, or what he calls a ?fiduciary society?. I will argue that while Tu's Confucian fiduciary society is perhaps an impractical ideal, a move towards it will provide a necessary counter-balance to the relentless march towards a rights-based society. (shrink)