A complete theory of harming must have both a substantive component and a formal component. The substantive component, which Victor Tadros (2014) calls the “currency” of harm, tells us what I interfere with when I harm you. The formal component, which Tadros calls the “measure” of harm, tells us how the harm to you is related to my action. In this chapter I survey the literature on both the currency and the measure of harm. I argue that the currency of (...) harm is well-being and that the measure of harming is best captured by a causal account on which harming is causing a harm. A harm for you is the presence of something intrinsically bad for you or the absence of something intrinsically good for you. Thus, although a counterfactual account of the measure of harm need not distinguish between an harm and a harmful event, the causal account reserves the term ‘harm’, not for a harmful event, but only for its effect. Finally, I show how a complete theory of harming can help us to answer questions about whether we can harm people with speech, whether we can harm the dead, and how it is possible to harm future generations. (shrink)

D. In doing x an agent acts incontinently if and only if: 1) the agent does x intentionally; 2) the agent believes there is an alternative action y open to him; and 3) the agent judges that, all things considered, it would be better to do y than to do x.

Machine generated contents note: Essay 1.

Law as a leap of faith -- Legal positivism : 5 1/2 myths -- Some types of law -- Can there be a written constitution? -- How law claims, what law claims -- Nearly natural law -- The legality of law -- The supposed formality of the rule of law -- Hart on legality, justice, and morality -- The virtue of justice and the character of law -- Law in general.

Problems of Rationality is the eagerly awaited fourth volume of Donald Davidson 's philosophical writings. From the 1960s until his death in August 2003 Davidson was perhaps the most influential figure in English-language philosophy, and his work has had a profound effect upon the discipline. His unified theory of the interpretation of thought, meaning, and action holds that rationality is a necessary condition for both mind and interpretation. Davidson here develops this theory to illuminate value judgements and how we (...) understand them; to investigate what the conditions are for attributing mental states to an object or creature; and to grapple with the problems presented by thoughts and actions which seem to be irrational. Anyone working on knowledge, mind, and language will find these essays essential reading. (shrink)

How do laws resemble rules of games, moral rules, personal rules, rules found in religious teachings, school rules, and so on? Are laws rules at all? Are they all made by human beings? And if so how should we go about interpreting them? How are they organized into systems, and what does it mean for these systems to have 'constitutions'? Should everyone want to live under a system of law? Is there a special kind of 'legal justice'? Does it consist (...) simply in applying the law of the system? And how does it relate to the ideal of 'the rule of law'?These and other classic questions in the philosophy of law form the subject-matter of Law as a Leap of Faith. In this book John Gardner collects, revisits, and supplements fifteen years of celebrated writings on general questions about law and legal systems - writings in which he attempts, without loss of philosophical finesse or insight, to cut through some of the technicalities with which the subject has become encrusted in the late twentieth century. Taking his agenda broadly from H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law, Gardner shows how the key ideas in that work live on, and how they have been and can still be improved in modest ways to meet important criticisms - in some cases by concession, in some cases by circumvention, and in some cases by restatement. In the process Gardner engages with key ideas of other modern giants of the subject including Kelsen, Holmes, Raz, and Dworkin. Most importantly he presents the main elements of his own unique and refreshingly direct way of thinking about law, brought together in one place for the first time. (shrink)

A Teacher's Manual for this book will be available online at www.temple.edu/tempress.

Part 1. Introduction -- Introduction: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate -- Thirty-Five Year Climate Change Policy Debate -- Part 2. Priority Ethical Issues -- Ethical Problems with Cost Arguments -- Ethics and Scientific Uncertainty Arguments -- Atmospheric Targets -- Allocating National Emissions Targets -- Climate Change Damages and Adaptation Costs -- Obligations of Sub-national Governments, Organizations, Businesses, and Individuals -- Independent Responsibility to Act -- Part 3. The Crucial Role of Ethics in Climate (...) Change Policy Making -- Why Has Ethics Failed to Achieve Traction? -- Conclusion: Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm. (shrink)

The author believes that large‐scale rationality on the part of the interpretant is essential to his interpretability, and therefore, in his view, to her having a mind. How, then are cases of irrationality, such as akrasia or self‐deception, judged by the interpretant's own standards, possible? He proposes that, in order to resolve the apparent paradoxes, one must distinguish between accepting a contradictory proposition and accepting separately each of two contradictory propositions, which are held apart, which in turn requires to conceive (...) of the mind as containing a number of semi‐independent structures of interlocking beliefs, desires, emotions, memories, and other mental states. (shrink)

In this paper, written for a volume on the work of Robert Alexy, I discuss the idea that law makes certain distinctive claims, an idea familiar from the work of both Alexy and Joseph Raz. I begin by refuting some criticisms by Ronald Dworkin of the very idea of law as a claim-maker. I then discuss whether, as Alexy and Raz agree, law's claim is a moral one. Having arrived at an affirmative verdict, I discuss the content of law's moral (...) claim. Is it, as Alexy says, a claim to moral correctness? Or is it, as Raz says, a claim to moral authority? (shrink)

Two things become one thing, something having parts, and something becoming something else, are cases of many things being identical with one thing. This apparent contradiction introduces others concerning transitivity of identity, discernibility of identicals, existence, and vague existence. I resolve the contradictions with a theory that identity, number, and existence are relative to standards for counting. What are many on some standard are one and the same on another. The theory gives an account of the discernibility of identicals using (...) phrases like “insofar as”. And it holds that standards for counting remain or shift depending on our purposes. (shrink)

A noted author defends his personal attitudes toward the fundamental issues of classical philosophy, discussing the awesome mystery surrounding science and life and explaining why he considers himself a theist.

Applies and extends the conclusions of the preceding chapters by examining cases of self‐deception of a puzzling sort emerging from cases of fantasizing and imagining, found in Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Flaubert's Madame Bovary. The author is particularly interested in what can be described as the ‘divided mind of self‐deception’, the mind that produces an imagination due to its realising the state of the world that motivates the fantasy construct and the possessor's eventual acquisition (...) of the belief that the fantasy construct represents reality accurately. In the process of deceiving oneself, he holds, no clear line can be drawn between imaginative activities that are not yet self‐deceptive and those that are. (shrink)

Abstract Non-reductive physicalism is currently the most widely held metaphysic of mind. My aim in this essay is to show that supervenience physicalism?perhaps the most common form of non-reductive physicalism?is not a defensible position. I argue that, in order for any supervenience thesis to ground a legitimate form of physicalism, it must yield the right sort of determination relation between physical and non-physical properties. Then I argue that non-reductionism leaves one without any explanation for the laws that are implied by (...) supervenience theses that deliver this determination relation. (shrink)

A survey of Howard Gardner's contributions to our understanding of learning, and how to create environments that support growth in all learners across the lifespan.

The Twentieth Century has seen a dramatic rise in the use of probability and statistics in almost all fields of research. This has stimulated many new philosophical ideas on probability. _Philosophical Theories of Probability_ is the first book to present a clear, comprehensive and systematic account of these various theories and to explain how they relate to one another. Gillies also offers a distinctive version of the propensity theory of probability, and the intersubjective interpretation, which develops the subjective theory.

Repr. as Essay 14 in Davidson, Donald, _Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation_, 2nd ed. Oxford, UK (Clarendon, 2001). 215-226.

The concept of metaphor as primarily a vehicle for conveying ideas, even if unusual ones, seems to me as wrong as the parent idea that a metaphor has a special meaning. I agree with the view that metaphors cannot be paraphrased, but I think this is not because metaphors say something too novel for literal expression but because there is nothing there to paraphrase. Paraphrase, whether possible or not, inappropriate to what is said: we try, in paraphrase, to say it (...) another way. But if I am right, a metaphor doesn't say anything beyond its literal meaning . This is not, of course, to deny that a metaphor has a point, nor that that point can be brought out by using further words. . . . My disagreement is with the explanation of how metaphor works its wonders. To anticipate: I depend on the distinction between what words mean and what they are used to do. I think metaphor belongs exclusively to the domain of use. It is something brought off by the imaginative employment of words and sentences and depends entirely on the ordinary meanings of those words and hence on the ordinary meanings of the sentences they comprise. Donald Davidson is University Professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. He is the author of many important essays, including "Actions, Reasons and Causes," "Causal Relations," and "Truth and Meaning," coauthor of Decision-Making: An Experimental Approach, and coeditor of Words and Objections, Semantics of Natural Language, and The Logic of Grammar. (shrink)

Current philosophical literature is saturated with the debate on biomedical enhancement, where bio-liberals and conservatives alike make compelling arguments for and against the enterprise. However, this literature is yet to consider the impact such enhancement would have on the individual’s actual lived experience. This article seeks to remedy that by situating the bioethics debate within the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, specifically theorising how biomedical enhancement of the physical kind would impact Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the body-subject. The central issue arises when (...) the reciprocal relationship between the physical body and phenomenal world (termed “body/world dynamic”) is shown to be off-balance because of the rapid rate at which human beings continue to “enhance” their environment. In this, we see that the development of the world has outweighed that of the body to the extent that we, as body-subjects, have become maladapted to the place we call home. This article will suggest that we can attempt to resolve this by restoring the balance of the body/world dynamic with “restrictive” enhancement, thereby providing an ethical justification for the pursuit of the enterprise. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Socrates is a collection of essays providing a comprehensive guide to Socrates, the most famous Greek philosopher. Because Socrates himself wrote nothing, our evidence comes from the writings of his friends (above all Plato), his enemies, and later writers. Socrates is thus a literary figure as well as a historical person. Both aspects of Socrates' legacy are covered in this volume. Socrates' character is full of paradox, and so are his philosophical views. These paradoxes have led (...) to deep differences in scholar's interpretation of Socrates and his thought. Mirroring this wide range of thought about Socrates, this volume's contributors are unusually diverse in their background and perspective. The essays in this volume were authored by classical philologists, philosophers, and historians from Germany, Francophone Canada, Britain, and the United States, and they represent a range of interpretive and philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Undoing anthropocentrism : becoming-animal and the nonhuman -- Vectors of becoming-imperceptible : the multiplicity of the pack -- Animal politics, animal deaths : transversal connectivities and the creation of an ethico-aesthetic paradigm -- Animal re-territorialisations in art and cinema -- Transverse animalities : ecosophical becomings.

No one who reads Derrida closely could accuse him of “technophobia.” More than any other contemporary thinker, on the contrary, he has shown the limit of attempts to protect thinking and even being itself from technē. Yet, Derrida nevertheless insists that “deconstruction” is neither a “technique” nor the technology of thinking that modern philosophy calls “method.” What allows Derrida to exclude “technique” and “method” when he himself shows, in relation to Heidegger above all, that a certain technicity and methodicity always (...) remain irreducible? After outlining its stakes (§I), this article seeks to raise this question by reconstructing Derrida’s engagement with Heidegger concerning the questions of technology (§II) and of method (§III) before turning to the techno-methodicity that Derrida attempts to dissociate from deconstruction in turn (§IV). (shrink)

Jeff McMahan rejects the relevance of desert to the morality of self-defense. In Killing in War he restates his rejection and adds to his reasons. We argue that the reasons are not decisive and that the rejection calls for further attention, which we provide. Although we end up agreeing with McMahan that the limits of morally acceptable self-defense are not determined by anyone’s deserts, we try to show that deserts may have some subsidiary roles in the morality of self-defense. We (...) suggest that recognizing this might help McMahan to answer some unanswered questions to which his own position gives rise. (shrink)

This paper considers some aspects of the morality of complicity, understood as participation in the wrongs of another. The central question is whether there is some way of participating in the wrongs of another other than by making a causal contribution to them. I suggest that there is not. In defending this view I encounter, and resist, the claim that it undermines the distinction between principals and accomplices. I argue that this distinction is embedded in the structure of rational agency.

“Fearless, illuminating” criticism from a New York Times–bestselling author and legendary teacher, “proving... that true art is moral and not trivial” (Los Angeles Times). Novelist John Gardner’s thesis in On Moral Fiction is simple: “True art is by its nature moral.” It is also an audacious statement, as Gardner asserts an inherent value in life and in art. Since the book’s first publication, the passion behind Gardner’s assertion has both provoked and inspired readers. In examining the work (...) of his peers, Gardner analyzes what has gone wrong, in his view, in modern art and literature, and how shortcomings in artistic criticism have contributed to the problem. He develops his argument by showing how artists and critics can reintroduce morality and substance to their work to improve society and cultivate our morality. On Moral Fiction is an essential read in which Gardner presents his thoughtfully developed criteria for the elements he believes are essential to art and its creation. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Gardner, including original letters, rare photos, and never-before-seen documents from the Gardner family and the University of Rochester Archives. (shrink)

This classic guide, from the renowned novelist and professor, has helped transform generations of aspiring writers into masterful writers—and will continue to do so for many years to come. John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. In this practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave, he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner’s lessons, exemplified with detailed (...) excerpts from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner’s book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here. (shrink)

This article advances some considerations that undermine the overall justification for what I call “beneficent interventions,” or interventions aimed at reducing the suffering of wild animals. I first appeal to Susan Wolf’s (2010) account of meaning in life to argue that wild animals can and do have meaning in their lives. I then argue that the meaning in animal lives can offset their suffering, making their lives more worth living. This source of positive value in the lives of wild animals (...) undermines some of the justification for those beneficent interventions that aim to reduce wild animal suffering by reducing the numbers of wild animals who either suffer or inflict suffering upon others. (shrink)

The concept of complexity has become very important in theoretical biology. It is a many faceted concept and too new and ill defined to have a universally accepted meaning. This review examines the development of this concept from the point of view of its usefulness as a criteria for the study of living systems to see what it has to offer as a new approach. In particular, one definition of complexity has been put forth which has the necessary precision and (...) rigor to be considered as a useful categorization of systems, especially as it pertains to those we call living. This definition, due to Robert Rosen, has been developed in a number of works and involves some deep new concepts about the way we view systems. In particular, it focuses on the way we view the world and actually practice science through the use of the modelling relation. This mathematical object models the process by which we assign meaning to the world we perceive. By using the modelling relation, it is possible to identify the subjective nature of our practices and deal with this issue explicitly. By so doing, it becomes clear that our notion of complexity and especially its most popular manifestations, is in large part a product of the historical processes which lead to the present state of scientific epistemology. In particular, it is a reaction to the reductionist/mechanistic view of nature which can be termed the Newtonian Paradigm. This approach to epistemology has dominated for so long that its use as a model has become implicit in most of what we do in and out of science. The alternative to this approach is examined and related to the special definition of complexity given by Rosen. Some historical examples are used to emphasize the dependence of our view of what is complex in a popular sense on the ever changing state of our knowledge. The role of some popular concepts such as chaotic dynamics are examined in this context. The fields of artificial life and related areas are also viewed from the perspective of this rigorous view of complexity and found lacking. The notion that in some way life exists at the edge of chaos is examined from the perspective of the second law of thermodynamics given by Schneider and Kay. Finally, the causal elements in complex systems are explored in relation to complexity. Rosen has shown that a clear difference in causal relations exists between complex and simple systems and that this difference leads to a uniquely useful definition of what we mean by living. Rosen makes it very clear that the class of systems which are complex is a much larger class than those which we call living. For that reason, the focus of this review will be on complexity as a stepping stone towards the deeper question of what makes a system alive. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Notes.

Mystery: the scalpel that split consciousness -- Beauty: sirens of the gene -- Reality: capers of the unseen sun -- Sensory: fitness beats truth -- Illusory: the bluff of a desktop -- Gravity: spacetime is doomed -- Virtuality: inflating a holoworld -- Polychromy: mutations of an interface -- Scrutiny: you get what you need, in both life and business -- Community: the network of conscious agents -- Precisely: the right to be wrong.