Many contemporary philosophers writing on punishment seek to show that much of the dispute between retributionists and utilitarians springs from a failure on the part of both parties to elucidate the concept of punishment. The writers are usually utilitarians who seek to show that what is true in the retributive theory is simply a point about the concept of punishment, and that for the rest, the morality of punishment is to be explained in terms of the utilitarian theory. Those who (...) attempt to destroy the retributive theory by reducing its element of truth to a mere conceptual point about the concept of punishment, seek to argue that the notion of being guilty of an offence is part of the concept of punishment. Against this kind of approach, I wish to consider whether a general theory of punishment is possible, and if so, what are its basic concepts—punishment, deserving of punishment, deserved, or justifiable punishment—and how they are to be elucidated. I shall be concerned to argue that much contemporary writing on punishment commits the Platonic fallacy of assuming that there is a single, core, paradigm use of ‘punishment’ which is to be found by elucidating the concept of legal punishment. (shrink)

There appear to be a number of general things which can be said about forgiveness. If these are left sufficiently vague they seem to be applicable to all the situations in which the term is used.First, there can be no question of forgiveness unless an injury has been inflicted on somebody by a moral agent. There must be something to forgive; and the injury that is to be forgiven must be one for which a moral agent can be held responsible. (...) One cannot forgive a rock for falling on one's foot or a cougar for attacking one's child—even though a child might kick the rock and a father might shoot the cougar. (shrink)

Reinhold Niebuhr, approaching the ethical field as a theologian rather than as a philosopher, has maintained that the Christian ethic is not single and indivisible, but that, on the contrary, it consists of what one might call an absolute ethic and a kind of interim ethic in which the notion of justice is prominent. Without commenting on Niebuhr's work I wish to put forward a view which, although more general than his, is perhaps not without a superficial resemblance to it.

The present volume contains the lectures and papers given at the 1994 international conference on hermeneutics in Halle (Germany). The conference aimed at a state of the art in the light of recent developments in science and humanities. The place in which the conference was held is renowned for its centuries-old tradition in hermeneutics and among the lectures there are indeed some devoted to this history. For the most part, however, the papers concentrate on present-day problems in fields as different (...) as comparative literature, religious studies, bible exegesis, esthetics, social sciences, intercultural dialogue. The theme of the conference, "strangeness and familiarity", reflects the tension in which any interpretation process is situated and that any theory of interpretation has to account for. The contributions to the volume are in German and French. (shrink)

Quine seems to maintain that there is no sharp distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences, and also that 'analytic' and 'synthetic' have no meaning. the dependence of these concepts on 'meaning' is used to show the incompatibility of these two interpretations of quine's conception of the analytic and the synthetic, and to show that both have a paradoxical character of their own. that may threat reductionist semantics as a whole. still the need for a totally different (rationalistic, essentialistic) semantics may (...) be obviated by a reasonable explication of a vague distinction between the analytic and the synthetic. (shrink)

Book Information The Weight of Finitude: On the Philosophical Question of God. By Ludwig Heyde. State University of New York Press. Albany. 1999. Pp. 177 + xviii. Paperback, US$17.95.

If, as we are told, Hume's essay on Miracles was an irrelevant insertion in his Enquiry to gain it the notoriety which the Treatise had missed, the artifice has certainly been successful. Hume's thesis has been hotly debated from that day to this. Neither side it seems can claim complete victory, for both make important concessions. Green, his mostly adverse critic, agrees with Mill and L. Stephen that the argument against miracles is “irrefragable” in itself, though not consonant, he thinks, (...) with Hume's own principles: on the other hand, Huxley whilst declaring it on the historical side “irrefragable,” demurs at least to the presentation of the formal side. (shrink)

Has a moral agent really done his duty when he has done what he wronglybelieves to be his duty? Is it right to act in accord with one's beliefs, even when they are mistaken? Or are we always obliged to perform that act which is objectively obligatory? In some such ways as these the problem as to whether one's ‘objective duty’ or one's ‘subjective duty’ is one's real duty has been posed. It might be argued that the objective view is (...) plainly right and that there appears to be a problem only because moral language is here being misused; that the problem is seen to be no problem once we accurately and fully describe acts based on erroneous beliefs. But this is like arguing that there is no problem as to whether the killing of innocent persons is intrinsically wrong, since we can describe each act involving killing in a long-hand way which circumvents the problem concerning the principle. (shrink)

In this Paper I am concerned to argue that the traditionally and contemporarily important arguments for a liberal society do provide a justification for what may fairly be called a liberal society. However, many liberals may wish to deny that the society which these arguments are seen to justify when their various limitations and qualifications are noted, can properly be called liberal, for it is less committed to non-interference with liberty than is the liberal society which those who advance these (...) arguments believe to be justified by them. (shrink)

The controversy between teleologists and deontologists, whether under these names or in other guises, is one of the long-standing disputes of ethics. In different branches of philosophy the perennial nature of a dispute may point to different things: in some, for example, it may properly incline one to say “a plague on both your houses” and thereafter to look for some way of disposing of the whole problem around which the philosophical problem has raged; in ethics, on the other hand, (...) root-and-branch methods of excision are to be deplored, for here a perennial issue usually draws attention to points of view which have somehow to be reconciled if the problems underlying them are to be overcome. The deontology-teleology controversy seems to me a case in point. Here, if anywhere in ethics, a reconciliation must be effected; and in the present paper my primary aim is to induce deontologists and teleologists to abandon their mutual hostility. 1 I shall attempt to carry out this mission of philosophical good will through examining the ways in which we justify imperatives. In the first section of the paper I shall say something about the controversy itself, making it clear that I consider that it has roots which it would be inconvenient to expose at this stage of the inquiry; in the second I shall study the justification of a number of typical non-moral imperatives; in the third I shall apply the findings of the second to the justification of moral imperatives; and finally, in the fourth section I shall return to the deontology-teleology controversy and attempt to elucidate how it arises, to point out the two levels on which the same dispute can be found, and to suggest a way in which the essentials of the rival views may be accepted and combined. (shrink)

In the world as we know it to-day it may seem foolish even to speak of such a thing as justice among nations. Whatever we may say about justice within the nation—and even within nations justice seems to have disappeared over a large portion of the globe—it appears obvious that the relation of one nation to another is determined, not by justice, but by force. The state of nature so gloomily described by Hobbes as the condition out of which men (...) have emerged, a state in which there is “continual fear and danger of violent death,” seems to be embodied in the international situation as it actually exists. In such a state of war, as Hobbes remarks, “this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice.”. (shrink)