: Eponymic honor is a common form of professional recognition in economics, as it is in other sciences. There also seems to be convincing evidence that individuals exposed to economic theory behave less cooperatively and more self-interestedly than individuals who have not been exposed to such economic ideas. Taken together these two facts would seem to suggest that the history of economic thought would be a history of rather contentious priority fights. If economists generally behave in self-interested and non-cooperative ways, (...) and having your name attached to a particular result serves one’s professional self-interest, then economists should be quick to fight for these eponymic honors. This means that economists should be continually involved in sordid disputes about who does, and who does not, get credit for various economic discoveries. The paradox is that such priority fights do not exist in economics. The paper examines absence of such disputes from a Mertonian perspective. (shrink)

In this paper we want to show how far the early, pre-critical Kant develops a theory of the constitution of space that not only anticipates insights usually attributed to the phenomenological theory of lived space with its emphasis on the constitutively central role of the human lived-body, but which also establishes the foundation for Kant’s Copernican turn according to which space is understood as ‘form of intuition’, implied in the activity of the transcendental subject. The key to understand this role (...) of the body lies in Kant’s understanding of the asymmetrical nature of a pair of hands, which despite being equal in size and structure, remain incongruent counterparts, and thus evade integration into a homogenous and purely self-referential form of space. (shrink)

In this article, I undertake three main tasks. First, I argue that, contrary to the standard view, moral injury is not a species of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) but rather, on the most coherent conception of moral injury, PTSD is (in effect) a species of moral injury. In doing so, I make use of the notion of caring deeply about something or someone worthy of being cared deeply about. Second, I consider so-called “dirty hands” actions in police work and in (...) war, and distinguish these from the morally legitimate, but harmful, actions of police officers and of war fighters, such as the morally legitimate use of coercive force and lethal force (respectively). While the morally legitimate use of harmful methods is constitutive of these occupational roles, “dirty hands” methods are not. Roughly speaking, a “dirty hands” action is one that is morally wrong and (typically) unlawful but done for the sake of a good outcome. Both categories of action are conducive to moral injury, but “dirty hands” actions much more so, especially given the slippery moral slope from “dirty hands” actions to egregious moral wrongdoing. Third, I offer some recommendations for reducing moral injury among police officers and war fighters. (shrink)

This article analyses the results of a series of interviews conducted among leading firms in agrofood designed to assess the strategic importance of biotechnologies. Earlier analyses have emphasized either the revolutionary character of these technologies or the ability of oligopoly structure to contain the potential within existing market patterns. Our interviews would suggest that biotechnologies must be situated within the shift to a demand oriented food system. This has led on the on hand to a preoccupation with quality rather (...) than cost-cutting applications. It has also highlighted the inter-connectedness of the different phases of the agrofood system, since the incentive and the capacity to introduce innovations at any one point in the system depends on their acceptability to other actors in the agrofood chain.Biotechnologies have now become integrated into the competitive strategies of the leading actors but they remain ambiguously placed within the emerging “biotechnology” paradigm. The peculiarities of the agrofood system and the limitations of its industrialization have opened the way to strong consumer pressure based on the demand for quality and “natural” food and agriculture. It remains to be seen whether advanced biotechnologies can be assimilated within these priorities. (shrink)

Children must be taught morality. They must be taught to recognise the authority of moral standards and to understand what makes them authoritative. But there’s a problem: the content and justification of morality are matters of reasonable disagreement among reasonable people. This makes it hard to see how educators can secure children’s commitment to moral standards without indoctrinating them. -/- In A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand tackles this problem head on. He sets out to show that moral (...) education can and should be fully rational. It is true that many moral standards and justificatory theories are controversial, and educators have an obligation to teach these nondirectively, with the aim of enabling children to form their own considered views. But reasonable moral disagreement does not go all the way down: some basic moral standards are robustly justified, and these should be taught directively, with the aim of bringing children to recognise and understand their authority. -/- This is an original and important contribution to the philosophy of moral education, which lays a new theoretical foundation for the urgent practical task of teaching right from wrong. (shrink)

Reflection without Rules offers a comprehensive, pointed exploration of the methodological tradition in economics and the breakdown of the received view within the philosophy of science. Professor Hands investigates economists' use of naturalistic and sociological paradigms to model economic phenomena and assesses the roles of pragmatism, discourse, and situatedness in discussions of economic practice before turning to a systematic exploration of more recent developments in economic methodology. The treatment emphasizes the changes taking place in science theory and its relationship to (...) the movement away from a rules-based view of economic methodology. The work will be of interest to all economists concerned with methodological issues as well as philosophers and others studying the relationships between economics and contemporary science theory. (shrink)

Schools plausibly have a role to play in countering radicalization by taking steps to prevent the acquisition of extremist beliefs, dispositions, and attitudes. A core component of the extremist mindset is aversion to compromise. Michael Hand inquires here into the possibility, desirability, and means of educating against this attitude. He argues that aversion to compromise is demonstrably undesirable and readiness to compromise demonstrably desirable, so discursive teaching of these attitudes should guide pupils toward these verdicts. And he identifies three (...) methods of formative teaching by which readiness to compromise can be cultivated in pupils. (shrink)

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis states, “the development of economic analysis would (...) look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas has been Professor of Philosophy at the Sorbonne and the director of the Ecole Normale Israelite Orientale. Through such works as "Totality and Infinity" and "Otherwise than Being", he has exerted a profound influence on twentieth-century continental philosophy, providing inspiration for Derrida, Lyotard, Blanchot and Irigaray. "The Levinas Reader" collects, often for the first time in English, essays by Levinas encompassing every aspect of his thought: the early phenomenological studies written under the guidance and inspiration of Husserl and (...) Heidegger; the fully developed ethical critique of such totalizing philosophies; the pioneering texts on the moral dimension to aesthetics; the rich and subtle readings of the Talmud which are an exemplary model of an ethical, transcendental philosophy at work; the admirable meditations on current political issues. Sean Hand's introduction gives a complete overview of Levinas's work and situates each chapter within his general contribution to phenomenology, aesthetics, religion, politics and, above all, ethics. Each essay has been prefaced with a brief introduction presenting the basic issues and the necessary background, and suggesting ways to study the text further. (shrink)

This paper examines methodological issues raised by revealed preference theory in economics: particularly contemporary revealed preference theory. The paper has three goals. First, to make the case that revealed preference theory is a broad research program in choice theory—not a single theory—and understanding this diversity is essential to any methodological analysis of the program. Second, to explore some of the existing criticisms of revealed preference theory in a way that emphasizes how the effectiveness of the critique depends on the particular (...) version of revealed preference under consideration. Finally, three additional criticisms are presented that are aimed specifically at contemporary revealed preference theory. (shrink)

Building on Miranda Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice, Karin Murris has recently argued that children in school characteristically receive a credibility deficit based on a disparaging stereotype of children, and charged teachers with eschewing such stereotypes and committing to epistemic equality. I raise some objections to Murris’s argument.

The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I consider some of the (...) issues that might jeopardize the success of this philosophical project. (shrink)

Alexander Rosenberg (1983) has argued, contrary to his previous work in the philosophy of economics, that economics is not science, and it is merely mathematics. The following paper argues that Rosenberg fails to demonstrate either of these two claims. The questions of the predictive weakness of modern economics and the cognitive standing of abstract economic theory are discussed in detail.

In this inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham in January 2014, I sketch the outline of a theory of moral education. The theory is an attempt to resolve the tension between two thoughts widely entertained by teachers, policy-makers and the general public. The first thought is that morality must be learned: children must come to see what morality requires of them and acquire the motivation to submit to its authority. The second thought is that morality is controversial: there (...) is deep uncertainty about both the requirements of morality and the reasons to comply with them. I draw distinctions between two kinds of moral education and between two kinds of moral inquiry . I argue that some basic moral standards are robustly justified and that schools should promote subscription to these standards by means of both moral formation and directive moral inquiry. (shrink)

This book brings together ten previously published essays on the philosophy of economics and economic methodology. The general theme is the application of Karl Popper's philosophy of science to economics -- not only by Popper himself but also by other members of the "Popperian school." There are three major issues that surface repeatedly: the applicability of Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science; the applicability of I. Lakatos's "methodology of scientific research programs" to economics; and the question of Popper's "situational analysis" approach (...) to social science. (shrink)

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to (...) it. (shrink)

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis states, “the development of economic analysis would (...) look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”. (shrink)

There is, on the face of it, a logical difficulty as well as a practical one about ascribing to parents both a right to give their children a religious upbringing and a duty to avoid indoctrinating them. Curiously, this logical difficulty was largely overlooked in the debate on religious upbringing and parental rights between Terence McLaughlin, Eamonn Callan and Peter Gardner in the 1980s. In this paper I set out the terms of the logical problem and propose a solution to (...) it. (shrink)

In the face of rising concerns about citizenship, national identity, diversity and belonging in Britain today, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum have looked to schools to inspire and invigorate a strong, modern sense of patriotism and common purpose, which is capable of binding people together and motivating citizens to fulfil their obligations to each other and to the state.In this timely and astute analysis, Michael Hand unpacks the claims made on both sides of the debate to (...) assess whether love of country is a defensible aim of education. Remarking on the curious failure of engagement between defenders and opponents of patriotic education, he looks beyond the usual arguments for and against, to offer original insight into whether teaching patriotic attachment can be defended on rational grounds. Rather than looking merely to the practical difficulties of cultivating common bonds without misrepresenting or distorting the country's history, Hand's tightly argued conclusion is that reasonable disagreement about the desirability of loving one's country rules out the explicit teaching of Patriotism in schools, and therefore, it should not be actively promoted but rather taught as a controversial issue in the classroom.Breaking new ground in the intellectual debates around teaching citizenship and promoting common patriotic purpose, Patriotism in Schools is an illuminating treatment of a pressing contemporary issue, which will animate and provoke debate amongst parents, teachers, students, academics, politicians and policy-makers alike. (shrink)

Discussion is widely held to be the pedagogical approach most appropriate to the exploration of controversial issues in the classroom, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the questions of why it is the preferred approach and how best to facilitate it. Here we address ourselves to both questions. We begin by clarifying the concept of discussion and justifying it as an approach to the teaching of controversial issues. We then report on a recent empirical study of the Perspectives (...) on Science AS-level course, focusing on what it revealed about aids and impediments to discussion of controversial ethical issues. (shrink)

The so-called knowability paradox results from Fitch's argument that if there are any unknown truths, then there are unknowable truths. This threatens recent versions of semantical antirealism, the central thesis of which is that truth is epistemic. When this is taken to mean that all truths are knowable, antirealism is thus committed to the conclusion that no truths are unknown. The correct antirealistic response to the paradox should be to deny that the fundamental thesis of the epistemic nature of truth (...) entails the knowability of all truths. Correctly understood, the antirealistic conditions on a proposition's truth do not require that the proposition possess a verification-procedure which, when executed under the given conditions, issues in an agent's recognition of truth, but merely that there be a verification-procedure which, under these conditions, takes the value true . The knowability paradox and the related idealism problem (that antirealism seems, but is not, committed to the necessary existence of an epistemic agent) draw attention to the fact that certain propositions, those that are about verification-procedures themselves, may under certain conditions take the value true despite their unperformability under these circumstances. Thus these propositions' procedures can only be performed when the propositions are false, and they gain the appearance of antirealistic impossibility (e.g., that there is an unknown truth). This differs from the unperformability that antirealists object to, pertaining merely to matters of execution rather than to the logical structure of the procedures themselves. The force of antirealism's notion of epistemic truth is piecemeal, rather than consisting in a blanket characterization of truth as knowable. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the normative interpretation of the fast-and-frugal research program and in particular to contrast it with the normative reading of rational choice theory and behavioral economics. The ecological rationality of fast-and-frugal heuristics is admittedly a form of normative naturalism – it derives what agents “ought” to do from that which “is” ecologically rational – and the paper will examine how this differs from the normative rationality associated with rational choice theory. I will also (...) attempt to assess the relative adequacy of normative ecological rationality. (shrink)

In this brief comment on Educational Goods, I raise two worries about the authors' proposed normative framework for educational decision-makers. The first concerns the omission of rationality, or responsiveness to reasons, from the list of educational goods; the second concerns the inclusion of parental interests in the list of independent values.

R.S. Peters' arguments for the worthwhileness of theoretical activities are intended to justify education per se, on the assumption that education is necessarily a matter of initiating people into theoretical activities. If we give up this assumption, we can ask whether Peters' arguments might serve instead to justify the academic curriculum over other curricular arrangements. For this they would need to show that theoretical activities are not only worthwhile but, in some relevant sense, more worthwhile than activities of other kinds. (...) I argue that Peters' hedonistic and transcendental arguments do not show this, but that his account of theoretical activities is suggestive of an instrumental argument which might fit the bill. (shrink)

This paper challenges Mäki's argument about commonsensibles by offering a case study from contemporary microeconomics – contemporary revealed preference theory (hereafter CRPT) – where terms like "preference," "utility," and to some extent "choice," are radical departures from the common sense meanings of these terms. Although the argument challenges the claim that economics is inhabited solely by commonsensibles, it is not inconsistent with such folk notions being common in economic theory.

The ‘new school system’ described in the Schools White Paper (DfE, ) presents religious organisations with two interesting opportunities. The first is an opportunity to play a significantly enhanced role in the management of faith-based schools. The second is an opportunity to rethink quite radically the content of their curricula. In this article I advance a proposal for the consideration of religious organisations: that they take up the opportunity to develop innovative, religiously distinctive curricula whilst eschewing the activity of confessional (...) religious education. I show how non-confessional, faith-based curricula are possible and offer some suggestions about what they might include. (shrink)

Should philosophy be a compulsory subject in schools? I take it as read that philosophy has general educational value: like other academic disciplines, it cultivates a range of intellectual virtues in those who study it. But that may not be a good enough reason to add it to the roster of established school subjects. The claim I defend in this article is that philosophy also has distinctive educational value: there are philosophical problems that feature prominently and pressingly in ordinary human (...) lives and that all children should be equipped by their education to tackle. Among these are the problems of justifying subscription to moral, political and religious standards. The significance of these problems for everyone is sufficient to warrant the inclusion of philosophy in the school curriculum. (shrink)

Serious difficulties attend the reading of David Hilbert's 1925 classic paper ?On the infinite?. I claim that the peculiarities of presentation plaguing certain parts of that paper, as well as of the earlier ?On the Foundations of Logic and Arithmetic? (1904), are due to a tension between two incompatible semantical approaches to numerical statements of elementary arithmetic, and accordingly two incompatible metaphysical conceptions of the natural numbers. One of these approaches is the referential, or model-theoretical one; the other is the (...) iterativist's approach. I draw out the two tendencies in these works, with more attention paid to Hilbert's iterativistic tendency because of the unfamiliarity of iterativism generally. I begin with an exposition of this view. (shrink)

Truth’s universal knowability entails its discovery. This threatens antirealism, which is thought to require it. Fortunately, antirealism is not committed to it. Avoiding it requires adoption (and extension) of Dag Prawitz’s position in his long-term disagreement with Michael Dummett on the notion of provability involved in intuitionism’s identification of it with truth. Antirealism (intuitionism generalized) must accommodate a notion of lost-opportunity truth (a kind of recognition-transcendent truth), and even truth consisting in the presence of unperformable verifications. Dummett’s position cannot abide (...) this, while Prawitz’s can. Antirealism’s epistemic notion of truth derives from general features of its meaning theory, not from a universal knowability principle. (shrink)

The so-called knowability paradox results from Fitch's argument that if there are any unknown truths, then there are unknowable truths. This threatens recent versions of semantical antirealism, the central thesis of which is that truth is epistemic. When this is taken to mean that all truths are knowable, antirealism is thus committed to the conclusion that no truths are unknown. The correct antirealistic response to the paradox should be to deny that the fundamental thesis of the epistemic nature of truth (...) entails the knowability of all truths. Correctly understood, the antirealistic conditions on a proposition's truth do not require that the proposition possess a verification-procedure which, when executed under the given conditions, issues in an agent's recognition of truth, but merely that there be a verification-procedure which, under these conditions, takes the value true. The knowability paradox and the related idealism problem draw attention to the fact that certain propositions, those that are about verification-procedures themselves, may under certain conditions take the value true despite their unperformability under these circumstances. Thus these propositions' procedures can only be performed when the propositions are false, and they gain the appearance of antirealistic impossibility. This differs from the unperformability that antirealists object to, pertaining merely to matters of execution rather than to the logical structure of the procedures themselves. The force of antirealism's notion of epistemic truth is piecemeal, rather than consisting in a blanket characterization of truth as knowable. (shrink)

Religious Education (RE) currently enjoys the status of a compulsory curriculum subject in state schools in England and Wales. Though it is not part of the National Curriculum, and therefore not subject to a nationally prescribed syllabus, it is part of the basic curriculum to which all children are entitled. The question I raise in this chapter is whether RE merits this status. Is the study of religion sufficiently central to the task of preparing children for adult life to justify (...) the existence of a separate and compulsory curriculum subject? (shrink)

University philosophy outreach programs are proliferating. On campuses across the world, students and staff are taking philosophy out to the wider community, and especially to children and young people in schools. Their mission is to engage the public in philosophical discussion and to make a notoriously abstract and arcane subject accessible, meaningful and useful. As yet, there is little published research on these programs. They give rise to two clusters of questions deserving of scholarly attention. First, there are questions about (...) the rationale for philosophy outreach. What is the purpose of taking philosophy into the community? What are the intended benefits of these programs, to the children and young people who participate in them, to the students and staff who lead them, to society at large, or to the discipline of philosophy itself? How do these aims inform the selection of philosophical topics, texts, tools and techniques? The second group of questions have to do with the success of philosophy outreach. What attempts have been made to evaluate these programs and their outcomes? Do they, in fact, yield the benefits intended by those who design and deliver them? Are there any drawbacks to participation, or benefits other than the intended ones? What challenges (financial, institutional, pedagogical, psychological) have been encountered by those engaged in philosophy outreach and how have they been overcome? These are the questions that animate this double special issue on university philosophy outreach programs. The tremendously positive response we received to our call for papers, from contributors in Europe, North America and Australasia, confirms our impression that these questions are ripe for scholarly attention. Here, in Issue 10(1) we present the first tranche of papers; the next tranche will follow later this year, in Issue 10(2). (shrink)

The article presents the author's perspectives regarding the book "The Significance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory," by Terence Wilmot Hutchison. He emphasizes two important general themes that emerge from the symposium in total, the great breadth of Hutchison's contribution to economic methodology and a brief introduction on the four individual papers. He mentions some people including Roger Backhouse, John Hart and Ross Emmett as well as the comments of each about Hutchison's works.

The paper traces the sequence of events which brought Popperian philosophy (including Lakatos) to its position on the issues of excess content, novelty and scientific progress. The general approach is to analyze Popper's and Lakatos's positions on these issues as an appropriate response to a particular philosophical problem situation in which they found themselves. The paper closes with a discussion of how these issues relate to economics and economic methodology.

Abstract: Don Ross’ Economic Theory and Cognitive Science (2005) provides an elaborate philosophical defense of neoclassical economics. He argues that the central features of neoclassical theory are associated with what he calls the Robbins-Samuelson argument pattern and that it can be reconciled with recent developments in experimental and behavioral economics, as well as contemporary cognitive science. This paper argues that Ross’ Robbins-Samuelson argument pattern is not in the work of either Robbins or Samuelson and in many ways is in conflict (...) with their own versions, and defenses, of neoclassical theory. (shrink)

In the foregoing articles, David Aldridge, Doret de Ruyter and John Tillson offer some weighty and wide-ranging criticisms of my recent book, A Theory of Moral Education (Hand, 2018a). I cannot hope to do justice to the detail of their criticisms in the space available to me, but I shall attempt, in what follows, to defend my account of moral education against their principal lines of attack. I am grateful to Aldridge, de Ruyter and Tillson for their close engagement (...) with the book and for the opportunity their objections afford me to clarify aspects of my argument. (shrink)

This fascinating monograph tackles a well-established problem in the philosophy of education. The problem is the threat posed to the logical possibility of non-confessional religious education by the claim that religion constitutes an autonomous language-game or form of knowledge. Defenders of this claim argue that religion cannot be understood from the outside: it is impossible to impart religious understanding unless one is also prepared to impart religious belief. Michael Hand argues for two central points: first, that non-confessional religious education (...) would indeed be impossible if it were true that religion constitutes a distinct form of knowledge; and, second, that religion does not in fact constitute a distinct form of knowledge. >. (shrink)

The structure of strategies for semantical games is studied by means of a new formalism developed for the purpose. Rigorous definitions of strategy, winning strategy, truth, and falsity are presented. Non-contradiction and bivalence are demonstrated for the truth-definition. The problem of the justification of deduction is examined from this perspective. The rules of a natural deduction system are justified: they are seen to guarantee existence of a winning strategy for the defender in the semantical game for the conclusion, given winning (...) strategies for that player in the games for the premises. Finally, it is shown how semantical games and the truth-definition can be given for languages lacking individual constants. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AZ902009 00003. (shrink)

InStabilizing Dynamics Roy Weintraub provides a history of stability theory from the work of Hicks and Samuelson in the late 1930s to the Gale and Scarf counterexamples in the 1960s. Unlike his earlier work in the history of general equilibrium theory this recent contribution is not an attempt to fit the Walrasian program into the narrow framework of some particular philosophy of natural science. Rather, the theme inStabilizing Dynamicsis broadly social constructivist. Simply put, the constructivist view of science is “that (...) scientific knowledge itself is constructed socially, in communities of scientists: Knowledge is constructed, not found”. (shrink)

Assuming that the issue of same-sex marriage should be discussed in schools, how should the discussion be framed? Michael Hand first distinguishes this question from the related but distinct question of whether discussion on this topic should be steered. He then examines three possible frames for discussion of same-sex marriage: the perfectionist frame, the antiperfectionist frame, and the practical accommodation frame. He defends the perfectionist frame over the two alternatives: the purpose of state involvement in marriage is to promote (...) valuable forms of intimate relationship, so the case for enabling same-sex couples to marry turns on the ethical claim that same-sex and opposite-sex intimate relationships are similarly valuable. Interrogation of this ethical claim must be central to classroom discussion of same-sex marriage. (shrink)

In this rejoinder to the foregoing responses to my article ‘Moral education in the community of inquiry’, I address what I take to be the four most fundamental objections to my proposed expansion of the community of inquiry (CoI) method. My proposal is that we make room in the CoI for directive teaching of moral standards we know to be justified or unjustified, in addition to nondirective teaching of moral standards whose justificatory status is unknown. The four objections I consider (...) are: (i) that the dominant conception of the CoI method already permits directive moral teaching; (ii) that permitting directive moral teaching in the CoI would edge out other valuable kinds of inquiry; (iii) that all moral standards are controversial; and (iv) that the task of distinguishing justified and unjustified moral standards from controversial ones is unreasonably demanding. I argue that none of these objections is successful. (shrink)

In a recent paper in BJES, John Wilson examines the question of the desirability of education and argues that the enterprise can only be justified if it is thought to be necessary 'as a means of salvation'. Here I expose a number of flaws in Wilson's argument and defend a rather more prosaic justificatory strategy.

Matthew Clayton, David Stevens and Laura D’Olimpio have advanced a series of objections to arguments I set out in my recent book A Theory of Moral Education – in particular to the problem-of-sociality justification for basic moral standards. Here I reply to their objections.