This paper deals with beauty as we encounter it in Christian works of art. Three main points are argued: i) Beauty, as it appears in the Christian work of art, is an invitation to delight and gratitude; ii) Beauty, as we encounter it in the Christian work of art, asks of us both the deepening of discernment and the cultivation of desire; iii) Beauty, as it is manifested in the Christian work of art, is not created by the artist but (...) is bestowed as a gift of God. Firstly, beauty must be recognised as giving delight. In defending this claim, the paper argues against theories which identify beauty with pleasure, and which devalue or dismiss beauty based on this false identification. Further, beauty does not only give, but also – as gift – makes a claim upon us. Gratitude is the appropriate response to beauty’s gift. Secondly, beauty as manifested in beautiful particulars embedded in the material and cultural world requires discernment. Moreover, we must embody a real receptiveness to beauty – by becoming beautiful ourselves – through the cultivation of desire. A full response to beauty entails the reorientation of our vision as well as our volition towards the infinite beauty of God. Thirdly, though beauty is manifestly present in made-made objects, it does so and is so as a gift of God. This understanding is supported by emphasising the Trinitarian nature of beauty. It is proposed that beauty is best identified not with the Son but with the Holy Spirit. (shrink)

This paper deals with beauty as we encounter it in Christian works of art. Three main points are argued: i) Beauty, as it appears in the Christian work of art, is an invitation to delight and gratitude; ii) Beauty, as we encounter it in the Christian work of art, asks of us both the deepening of discernment and the cultivation of desire; iii) Beauty, as it is manifested in the Christian work of art, is not created by the artist but (...) is bestowed as a gift of God. Firstly, beauty must be recognised as giving delight. In defending this claim, the paper argues against theories which identify beauty with pleasure, and which devalue or dismiss beauty based on this false identification. Further, beauty does not only give, but also – as gift – makes a claim upon us. Gratitude is the appropriate response to beauty’s gift. Secondly, beauty as manifested in beautiful particulars embedded in the material and cultural world requires discernment. Moreover, we must embody a real receptiveness to beauty – by becoming beautiful ourselves – through the cultivation of desire. A full response to beauty entails the reorientation of our vision as well as our volition towards the infinite beauty of God. Thirdly, though beauty is manifestly present in made-made objects, it does so and is so as a gift of God. This understanding is supported by emphasising the Trinitarian nature of beauty. It is proposed that beauty is best identified not with the Son but with the Holy Spirit. (shrink)

Daniel C. Dennett has long maintained that the Consequence Argument for incompatibilism is confused. In a joint work with Christopher Taylor, he claims to have shown that the argument is based on a failure to understand Logic 101. Given a fairly plausible account of having the power to cause something, they claim that the argument relies on an invalid inference rule. In this paper, I show that Dennett and Taylor’s refutation does not work against a better, more standard version (...) of the Consequence Argument. Therefore, Dennett and Taylor’s alleged refutation fails. (shrink)

This is the best collection of essays on Rorty’s philosophy that has been published in the last decade. It will be of great interest not only to Rorty specialists but to anyone concerned with the difficulties contemporary analytic philosophy faces in its search for a viable self-understanding. The contributors are Barry Allen, Akeel Bilgrami, Jacques Bouveresse, Robert Brandom, James Conant, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Jürgen Habermas, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, Bjørn Ramberg, and Michael Williams. Rorty himself has also written (...) an essay, plus individual and fairly extensive replies to each of his critics. (shrink)

The Consequence Argument is the classic argument for the incompatibility of determinism and our ability to do otherwise. Daniel C. Dennett objects that the Consequence Argument suffers from the same error as a clearly unconvincing argument that there are no mammals. In this paper, I argue that these arguments do not suffer from the same error. The argument that there are no mammals is unconvincing as it takes the form of a sorites, whereas the Consequence Argument does not. Accordingly, (...) Dennett's objection misses its mark. (shrink)

This is the best collection of essays on Rorty’s philosophy that has been published in the last decade. It will be of great interest not only to Rorty specialists but to anyone concerned with the difficulties contemporary analytic philosophy faces in its search for a viable self-understanding. The contributors are Barry Allen, Akeel Bilgrami, Jacques Bouveresse, Robert Brandom, James Conant, Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, Jürgen Habermas, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, Bjørn Ramberg, and Michael Williams. Rorty himself has also written (...) an essay, plus individual and fairly extensive replies to each of his critics. (shrink)

According to Longtermism, our acts’ expected influence on the expected value of the world is mainly determined by their effects in the far future. There is, given total utilitarianism, a straightforward argument for Longtermism due to the enormous number of people that might exist in the future, but this argument does not work on person-affecting views. In this paper, we will argue that these views might also lead to Longtermism if Prudential Longtermism is true. Prudential Longtermism holds for a person (...) if and only if our acts’ overall influence on that person’s expected well-being is mainly determined by the acts’ effects in the far future. We argue that (due to a small chance of anti-ageing and uploading) there could be an enormous amount of prudential value for some contemporary person in the far future and that value may be so large that it dominates their overall expectation of lifetime well-being. (shrink)

A standard liberal claim is that freedom of choice is not only instrumentally valuable but also intrinsically valuable, that is, valuable for its own sake. I argue that each one of five conditions is plausible if freedom of choice is intrinsically valuable. Yet there exists a counter-example to the conjunction of these conditions. Hence freedom of choice is not intrinsically valuable.

This article develops a new measure of freedom of choice based on the proposal that a set offers more freedom of choice than another if, and only if, the expected degree of dissimilarity between a random alternative from the set of possible alternatives and the most similar offered alternative in the set is smaller. Furthermore, a version of this measure is developed, which is able to take into account the values of the possible options.

Anna Mahtani describes a puzzle meant to show that the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle is incomplete as it stands and, since it cannot be completed in a satisfactory manner, decades of debate in welfare economics and ethics are undermined. In this paper, we provide a better solution to the puzzle which saves the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle from this challenge. We also explain how the plausibility of our solution is reinforced by its similarity to a standard solution to an analogous puzzle in (...) quantified epistemic logic. We also show that even if the puzzle were to remain unsolved, its impact on welfare economics and ethics would be limited. (shrink)

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2001.

This unique collection of articles on emotion by Wittgensteinian philosophers provides a fresh perspective on the questions framing the current philosophical and scientific debates about emotions and offers significant insights into the role of emotions for understanding interpersonal relations and the relation between emotion and ethics.

This bookis about the roots of managerial rationality. A theoretical base, founded on the concept of 'memetics' is developed in order to explain human thinking and human reason as products of cultural evolution. Cultural change and development are explained by simple, value-driven memetic mechanisms like 'ritualization' and 'extremization'.

In this paper, we aim to show that a study of Gilbert Ryle’s work has much to contribute to the current debate between intellectualism and anti-intellectualism with respect to skill and know-how. According to Ryle, knowing how and skill are distinctive from and do not reduce to knowing that. What is often overlooked is that for Ryle this point is connected to the idea that the distinction between skill and mere habit is a category distinction, or a distinction in form. (...) Criticizing the reading of Ryle presented by Jason Stanley, we argue that once the formal nature of Ryle’s investigation is recognized it becomes clear that his dispositional account is not an instance of reductionist behaviorism, and that his regress argument has a broader target than Stanley appears to recognize. (shrink)

In this paper we shed new light on the Argument from Disagreement by putting it to test in a computer simulation. According to this argument widespread and persistent disagreement on ethical issues indicates that our moral opinions are not influenced by any moral facts, either because no such facts exist or because they are epistemically inaccessible or inefficacious for some other reason. Our simulation shows that if our moral opinions were influenced at least a little bit by moral facts, we (...) would quickly have reached consensus, even if our moral opinions were affected by factors such as false authorities, external political shifts, and random processes. Therefore, since no such consensus has been reached, the simulation gives us increased reason to take seriously the Argument from Disagreement. Our conclusion is however not conclusive; the simulation also indicates what assumptions one has to make in order to reject the Argument from Disagreement. The simulation algorithm we use builds on the work of Hegselmann and Krause (J Artif Soc Social Simul 5(3); 2002, J Artif Soc Social Simul 9(3), 2006). (shrink)

In 'A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs' Donald Davidson attacks a picture of language which, he says, is prevalent among philosophers and linguists. Davidson's criticism, even if correct, is not radical enough. The common irregularities of everyday language, such as malapropisms, nicknames, and slips of the tongue, not only imply that linguistic meanings are not governed by conventions that are learned in advance of occasions of interpretation, but undermine the very idea that linguistic meaning can be accounted for in terms of (...) systematic meaning-theories. Davidson continues to hold that Tarskian truth-definitions should play a central role in philosophical accounts of language, but if the goal is to describe rather than to improve or otherwise change language, we must give up the aspiration towards theoretical systematicity altogether. In this connection, Davidson's approach is compared with those of Quine and Wittgenstein. It is argued that Davidson's unwillingness to give up the notion that meaning is systematic is best explained in terms of his vacillating between treating meaning-theories as mere representations of the linguistic abilities of a speaker and seeing them as playing a more substantial role in communication. (shrink)

It is common to hear talk of the aim of belief and to find philosophers appealing to that aim for numerous explanatory purposes. What belief 's aim explains depends, of course, on what that aim is. Many hold that it is somehow related to truth, but there are various ways in which one might specify belief 's aim using the notion of truth. In this article, by considering whether they can account for belief 's standard of correctness and the epistemic (...) norms governing belief, I argue against certain prominent specifications of belief 's aim given in terms of truth, and advance a neglected alternative. (shrink)

A straightforward way to handle moral uncertainty is simply to follow the moral theory in which you have most credence. This approach is known as My Favourite Theory. In this paper, I argue that, in some cases, My Favourite Theory prescribes choices that are, sequentially, worse in expected moral value than the opposite choices according to each moral theory you have any credence in. In addition this, problem generalizes to other approaches that avoid intertheoretic comparisons of value, such as My (...) Favourite Option, the Borda Rule, Variance Normalization, and the Principle of Maximizing Expected Normalized Moral Value. (shrink)

One might think that money pumps directed at agents with cyclic preferences can be avoided by foresight. This view was challenged two decades ago by the discovery of a money pump with foresight, which works against agents who use backward induction. But backward induction implausibly assumes that the agent would act rationally and retain her trust in her future rationality even at choice nodes that could only be reached if she were to act irrationally. This worry does not apply to (...) BI-terminating decision problems, where at each choice node backward induction prescribes a move that terminates further action. For BI-terminating decision problems, it is enough to assume that rationality and trust in rationality are retained at choice nodes reachable by rational moves. The old money pump with foresight was not BI-terminating. In this paper, we present a new money pump with foresight, one that is both BI-terminating and considerably simpler. (shrink)

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

Given reductionism about people, personal persistence must fundamentally consist in some kind of impersonal continuity relation. Typically, these continuity relations can hold from one to many. And, if they can, the analysis of personal persistence must include a non-branching clause to avoid non-transitive identities or multiple occupancy. It is far from obvious, however, what form this clause should take. This paper argues that previous accounts are inadequate and develops a new proposal.

Is an outcome where many people are saved and one person dies better than an outcome where the one is saved and the many die? According to the standard utilitarian justification, the former is better because it has a greater sum total of well-being. This justification involves a controversial form of moral aggregation, because it is based on a comparison between aggregates of different people's well-being. Still, an alternative justification—the Argument for Best Outcomes—does not involve moral aggregation. I extend the (...) Argument for Best Outcomes to show that any utilitarian evaluation can be justified without moral aggregation. (shrink)

Prioritarianism is a variant of utilitarianism. It differs from utilitarianism in that benefiting individuals matters more the worse off these individuals are. On this view, there are two standard ways of handling risky prospects: Ex-Post Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off in final outcomes and then values prospects by the expectation of the sum total of those adjusted values, whereas Ex-Ante Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off on each individual's expectation and then values prospects by the sum total (...) of those adjusted expectations. A standard objection to Ex-Post Prioritarianism is that it violates Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes choices that worsen the expectations for everyone. In this article, I argue that Ex-Ante Prioritarianism suffers from much the same problem: it violates a sequential version of Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes sequences of choices that worsen the expectations for everyone. (shrink)

Independence is the condition that, if X is preferred to Y, then a lottery between X and Z is preferred to a lottery between Y and Z given the same probability of Z. Is it rationally required that one’s preferences conform to Independence? The main objection to this requirement is that it would rule out the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences. In this paper, I put forward a sequential dominance argument with fairly weak assumptions for a variant of (...) Independence (called Independence for Constant Prospects), which shows that Allais and Ellsberg Preferences are irrational. Hence this influential objection (that is, the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences) can be rebutted. I also put forward a number of sequential dominance arguments that various versions of Independence are requirements of rationality. One of these arguments is based on very minimal assumptions, but the arguments for the versions of Independence which are strong enough to serve in the standard axiomatization of Expected Utility Theory need notably stronger assumptions. (shrink)

A dialogue, in three parts, on utilitarian vulnerability to exploitation.

Kurt Gödel’s version of the Ontological Proof derives rather than assumes the crucial Possibility Claim: the claim that it is possible that something God-like exists. Gödel’s derivation starts off with a proof of the Possible Instantiation of the Positive: the principle that, if a property is positive, it is possible that there exists something that has that property. I argue that Gödel’s proof of this principle relies on some implausible axiological assumptions but it can be patched so that it only (...) relies on plausible principles. But Gödel’s derivation of the Possibility Claim also needs a substantial axiological assumption, which is still open to doubt. (shrink)

The widespread effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have negatively impacted upon many athletes’ mental health and increased reports of depression as well as symptoms of anxiety. Disruptions to training and competition schedules can induce athletes’ emotional distress, while concomitant government-imposed restrictions (e.g., social isolation, quarantines) reduce the availability of athletes’ social and emotional support. Written Emotional Disclosure (WED) has been used extensively in a variety of settings with diverse populations as a means to promote emotional processing. The (...) expressive writing protocol has been used to a limited extent in the context of sport and predominantly in support of athletes’ emotional processing during injury rehabilitation. We propose that WED offers an evidence-based treatment that can promote athletes’ mental health and support their return to competition. Research exploring the efficacy of the expressive writing protocol highlights a number of theoretical models underpinning the positive effects of WED; we outline how each of these potential mechanisms can address the multidimensional complexity of the challenging circumstances arising from the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., loss of earnings, returning to training and competition). Considerations and strategies for using WED to support athletes during the COVID-19 pandemic are presented. (shrink)

The Levelling-Down Objection is a standard objection to monistic egalitarian theories where equality is the only thing that has intrinsic value. Most egalitarians, however, are value pluralists; they hold that, in addition to equality being intrinsically valuable, the egalitarian currency in which we are equal or unequal is also intrinsically valuable. In this paper, I shall argue that the Levelling-Down Objection still minimizes the weight that the intrinsic badness of inequality could have in the overall intrinsic evaluation of outcomes, given (...) a certain way of measuring the badness of inequality, namely, the Additive Individual-Complaints Measure. (shrink)

The war in Vietnam claimed the lives of five million of its citizens, many of whom died in ways thought to have turned them into malevolent spirits who prey on the living. These angry ghosts are held responsible for a host of physical ailments and other misfortunes suffered by survivors of the war and their descendants. Known in the anthropological literature as possession illness, the cross‐cultural treatment for such maladies is typically provided by practitioners like mediums and exorcists, who cure (...) victims by interacting with noncorporeal entities. In Vietnam, such spirit healers were banned after the communist takeover of the North in 1945. This has posed a problem for the large numbers of Vietnamese who suffer from ghost‐induced sickness. This paper focuses on three victims of angry ghosts, presenting the common origin, context, and resolution of their suffering. In doing so, it provides an overview of Vietnamese beliefs about death and the after‐life, the ideal relationship between the living and the dead, and the connection between state politics and spirit practice. (shrink)

The complex gestures of artwork remain an under-explored theoretical topos in contemporary visual culture studies. In our turbulent mediasphere where images are constantly mobilized to enact symbolic forms of warfare and where they get entangled in all kinds of cultural conflicts and controversies, a turn to the gestural life of images promises a particularly pertinent avenue of intellectual inquiry. As both a cultural phenomenon and a philosophical concept, the notion of gesture straddles several disciplines, such as anthropology, linguistics, performance, theater, (...) film and visual studies. In this volume, contributors ask: How may one speak not only of the gestures of the body but also of the gestures of the image? What constitutes gesturality in the image and, more broadly, what are the gestures of the aesthetic itself? By thinking about images within this conceptual framework, this volume seeks to renew our understanding of the image. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the view that a belief cannot be at once warranted and false. In this essay we assess three nonpartisan arguments for infallibilism, arguments that do not depend on a prior commitment to some substantive theory of warrant. Three premises, one from each argument, are most significant: if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then the Gettier Problem cannot be solved; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then its warrant can be transferred (...) to an accidentally true belief; if a belief can be at once warranted and false, then it can be warranted and accidentally true. We argue that each of these is either false or no more plausible than its denial. Along the way, we offer a solution to the Gettier Problem that is compatible with fallibilism. (shrink)

A compelling requirement on normative theories is that they should be satisfiable, that is, in every possible choice situation with a finite number of alternatives, there should be at least one performable act such that, if one were to perform that act, one would comply with the theory. In this paper, I argue that, given some standard assumptions about free will and counterfactuals, Objective Act Consequentialism violates this requirement.

Jeremy Bentham is often interpreted as defending a satisficing, rather than maximizing, version of utilitarianism, where an act is right as long as it produces more pleasure than pain. This lack of maximization is surprising given Bentham’s maximizing slogan ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’. Against the satisficing interpretation, I argue that Bentham consistently defends a maximizing version of utilitarianism, where an act’s consequences are compared to those of not performing the act. I show that following this version of (...) utilitarianism requires that one realizes the greatest happiness for all affected individuals. (shrink)

Due to the potential ethical and psychological implications of screening, and especially inregard of screening on children without available and acceptable therapeutic measures, there is a common view that such procedures are not advisable. As part of an independent research- and bioethical case study, our aim was therefore to explore and describe bioethical issues among a representative sample of participant families (n = 17,055 children) in the ABIS (All Babies In South-east Sweden) research screening for Type 1 diabetes (IDDM).The primary (...) aim is the identification of risk factors important for the development of diabetes and other multifactorial immune-mediated diseases. Four hundred, randomly chosen, participant mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire exploring issues of information, informed consent, bio-material, confidentiality and autonomy, and of prevention/intervention. 293 completed the questionnaire, resulting in a response rate of 73.3%. The majority of questions had the form of 6-point Likert-type response scales (1–6).We found that the majority of respondents felt calm in regard of samples and written material, and also concerning the possibility of their child in the future being identified as having high risk of developing Type 1 diabetes. An important finding concerning access and control of mainly biological data was indicated, with the respondents expressing concern for potential future use. We believe our findings indicate that this kind of empirical studies can substantially contribute to our understanding of bioethical issues of medical research involving genetics. Issues, such as safeguards ensuring theethical criteria of autonomy and respect, were emphasised by our respondents. We believe theissues brought up may promote further discussion, and do suggest issues for consideration by, among others, researchers, bioethicists and Institutional Review Boards. (shrink)

The aim of this mixed methods field study was to gain a better understanding of how psychological factors can contribute to success in intervention-induced behavior change over time. While it can be difficult to change behavior, the use of interventions means that most participants succeed in change during the intervention. However, it is rare for the immediate change to automatically transform into maintained behavior changes. Most research conducted on health-related behavior change interventions contains quantitative studies that investigate key intervention components (...) on a group level. Hence, to bring more knowledge about maintained intervention-induced behavior change, there is need for a study approach that enhances the understanding of individual participants' experiences during and after the intervention. Therefore, the present study, which was conducted in Sweden, used a mixed methods design (triangulation) consisting of pre-, post-, and follow-up quantitative data (questionnaires and body measurements) and qualitative data (interviews), where the individuals' accounts are used to broaden the understanding of the intervention and the behavior change process. All study participants were enrolled in a volitional (fee-based and non-manipulated) intervention given by certified gyms. The quantitative data collection included 22 participants who completed questionnaires and body measurements before and after the intervention, plus 13 complete body measurements 6 months after the intervention. The qualitative data included pre-interviews with 12 participants and six follow-up-interviews. The questions in both questionnaires and interviews related to expectations, efficacy, motivation, goals, achievements, behavior change, and future. Overall, the results show that levels of expectations, efficacy, and motivation cannot be used in isolation to predict maintained intervention-induced behavior change. To successfully extend and maintain immediate change, it was crucial to experience goal achievement (but not BMI change). Furthermore,enabling talkwas salient in the pre-interviews with participants reporting successful immediate (and maintained) change. By contrast, pre-interviewdisabling talkturned out to be evident in interviews, with participants not responding to follow-up. When the qualitative and quantitative results are summarized and integrated, it appears that subjective goal achievement, combined with enabling self-talk, were crucial factors in successful maintained behavior change. (shrink)

According to the Psychological-Continuity Account of What Matters, you are justified in having special concern for the well-being of a person at a future time if and only if that person will be psychologically continuous with you as you are now. On some versions of the account, the psychological continuity is required be temporally ordered, whereas, on other versions, it is allowed to be temporally unordered. In this paper, I argue that the account is implausible if the psychological continuity is (...) allowed to be temporally unordered. I also argue that, if the psychological continuity is required to be temporally ordered, it cannot plausibly be purely psychological (in the sense that the psychological continuity is not required to be caused through spatio-temporal continuity of a brain). The upshot is that no plausible version of the Psychological-Continuity Account of What Matters is purely psychological. So psychological continuity is not what matters in survival. (shrink)

The social sciences playa variety of multifaceted roles in the policymaking process. So varied are these roles, indeed, that it is futile to talk in the singular about the use of social science in policymaking, as if there were one constant relationship between two fixed and stable entities. Instead, to address this issue sensibly one must talk in the plural about uses of dif ferent modes of social scientific inquiry for different kinds of policies under various circumstances. In some cases, (...) the influence of social scientific research is direct and tangible, and the connection between the find ings and the policy is easy to see. In other cases, perhaps most, its influence is indirect-one small piece in a larger mosaic of politics, bargaining, and compromise. Occasionally the findings of social scientific studies are explicitly drawn upon by policymakers in the formation, implementation, or evaluation of particular policies. More often, the categories and theoretical models of social science provide a general background orientation within which policymakers concep tualize problems and frame policy options. At times, the in fluence of social scientific work is cognitive and informational in nature; in other instances, policymakers use social science primarily for symbolic and political purposes in order to le gitimate preestablished goals and strategies. Nonetheless, amid this diversity and variety, troubling general questions persistently arise. (shrink)

Gender-inclusive language, such as the Swedish pronoun hen, may aid in breaking a binary notion of gender and avoid sexism. The present study followed the implementation of a gender-inclusive third-person pronoun singular in Swedish in two surveys with representative samples in 2015 and in 2018. The surveys comprised measures of attitudes toward, and use of, hen as well as possible predictors such as area of residence, age, preferred pronoun, political orientation, and interest in gender issues. Results showed that attitudes toward (...) hen became more positive and that use of hen increased between 2015 and 2018. About half of the population used hen in their communication in 2018, which is a 14-percentage-point increase from 2015. Younger age, she or hen as preferred pronoun, political left-wing orientation, and interest in gender issues predicted a more positive attitude and a more frequent use. Furthermore, the positive change between 2015 and 2018 was larger among younger people, indicating that hen will remain in the Swedish language. The present research is unique in that it follows a gender-fair language initiative during its implementation in representative samples, thereby providing insights for social movements aiming for gender-fair language. We also discuss the theoretical implications of a gender-inclusive pronoun in comparison with past studies on gender-fair language. (shrink)

1. Happiness, then and now -- Happiness, eudaimonia, and practical reasoning -- Happiness as eudaimonia -- Happiness and virtuous activity -- New directions from old debates -- 2. Happiness then: the sufficiency debate -- Aristotle's case against the sufficiency thesis -- 3. Happiness now: rethinking the self -- Socrates' case for the sufficiency thesis -- Epictetus and the stoic self -- The Stoics' case for the sufficiency thesis -- The embodied conception of the self -- The embodied conception and psychological (...) well-being -- The Stoics' case against the embodied conception. (shrink)

Suppose that you prefer A to B, B to C, and C to A. Your preferences violate Expected Utility Theory by being cyclic. Money-pump arguments offer a way to show that such violations are irrational. Suppose that you start with A. Then you should be willing to trade A for C and then C for B. But then, once you have B, you are offered a trade back to A for a small cost. Since you prefer A to B, you (...) pay the small sum to trade from B to A. But now you have been turned into a money pump. You are back to the alternative you started with but with less money. This Element shows how each of the axioms of Expected Utility Theory can be defended by money-pump arguments of this kind. The Element also defends money-pump arguments from the standard objections to this kind of approach. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts—good deeds “beyond the call of duty”—are a part of moral common sense, but conceptually puzzling. I propose a unified solution to three of the most infamous puzzles: the classic Paradox of Supererogation (if it’s so good, why isn’t it just obligatory?), Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, and Kamm’s Intransitivity Paradox. I conclude that supererogation makes sense if, and only if, the grounds of rightness are multi-dimensional and comparative.

This paper discusses thepractical impact of a non-materialistic cultureon sustainable farm management.Two elements are discussed: first, how deeplyrooted religion is in this culture; second,the feasibility of using both human knowledgeand experience, so-called tradition and divineguidance in management. Finally, theimplications of the fusion of these twoelements are drawn. The outcome is thecapability of man to integrate ethical valuesinto decisions and actions. This integration,when applied by skilled farmers, leads to amanagement of natural resources in analtruistic fashion and not merely to economicends. Moreover, (...) it makes agriculture meaningfuland sustainable. (shrink)