The goal of this paper is to make headway on a metaphysics of social construction. In recent work, I’ve argued that social construction should be understood in terms of metaphysical grounding. However, I agree with grounding skeptics like Wilson that bare claims about what grounds what are insufficient for capturing, with fine enough grain, metaphysical dependence structures. To that end, I develop a view on which the social construction of human social kinds is a kind of realization relation. Social kinds, (...) I argue, are multiply realizable kinds. I depart from the Wilson by further arguing that an appeal to grounding is not otiose when it comes to social construction. Social construction, I claim, belongs to the “big-G” Grounding genus, but it is the specific “small-g” relation of realization at work in cases of human kind social construction. (shrink)

Ibn Mattawayh, al-Tadhkira fī aḥkām al-jawāhir wa-l-aʿrāḍ. Edited by Daniel Gimaret. 2 vols. Cairo: IFAO, 2009. Pp. 818. €89. Kausalität in der muʿtazilitischen Kosmologie: Das Kitāb al-Muʾaṯṯirāt wa-miftāḥ al-muškilāt des Zayditen al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ. By Jan Thiele. Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science, vol. 84. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. x + 155 + 57. $136.

In this paper I argue that, according to Peirce’s mature account of perception, we directly perceive generals, or "Thirds," in external reality which should be described as physical and not as mental. I argue against three other interpretations of the role of Thirdness in Peirce’s account: (I) we do not directly perceive Thirds, although they are involved in the interpretive and judgmental part of perception; (II) we directly perceive Thirds, but they are imposed on external objects by our minds; and (...) (III) we directly perceive Thirds in external objects, but external reality is comprised of the representations of an objective mind. I address questions about the role of the percept and the percipuum in his account, in what exact sense he thought that perception is interpretive, and how he thought it is even possible to directly perceive generals in the external world. (shrink)

Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for example, and made conscious (...) efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Peirce on Realism and Idealism by Robert LaneAaron B. WilsonPeirce on Realism and Idealism Robert Lane. Cambridge UP, 2018.Robert Lane's Peirce on Realism and Idealism is the ultimate secondary source for those who wish to engage the forms of realism and idealism that Peirce develops over the course of his writings. Lane could not have given his monograph a more concise and descriptive title. He never strays from (...) the topics of realism and idealism, and it is remarkably complete. It includes extensive discussion on Peirce's basic realism (Lane's term) as well as his extreme scholastic realism (Peirce's term), his basic idealism (Lane's term), and his objective idealism (Peirce's term). It might not be the best resource for those interested in the historical influences on Peirce's forms of realism and idealism. For instance, if one is interested mainly in Peirce's extreme scholastic realism and its roots in scholastic philosophy, Mayorga (2007)1 might still be a more useful resource. Also, Lane leaves much to be said about the epistemological underpinnings of Peirce's forms of realism and idealism. Peirce's theory of perception and his critical common-sensism do not get much attention. Also, there is much in Peirce's later semeiotic writings that could have been brought to bear on the issues.However, I do not see any of these omissions as failures of Lane's work. As I read it, the book's central aims are to determine the following: (1) what metaphysical views did Peirce hold, (2) when did he hold them, (3) are they consistent with one another, and (4) what is the textual evidence that he held them as such. With respect to these aims, Peirce on Realism and Idealism exhibits the gold standard of Peirce scholarship: it is remarkably sensitive to dates, different writings, and contexts of writings, and the reader gets a strong impression that Lane has not left any stone unturned—that he had at least skimmed every word in every lecture, published writing, letter, and unpublished manuscript that Peirce produced.Although the book contains some interpretations about which I have some reservations, which I describe further on, I agree with most of its central claims. This includes the claim that, despite various developments, Peirce had always subscribed to "basic realism": the thesis that there are things independent of what anyone thinks about them. A whole chapter is dedicated to showing that Peirce's 1868–1869 "anti-Cartesian" papers are consistent with basic realism, and I found that chapter very helpful. Another thesis that Lane defends, and that I strongly agree with, is that Peirce held a representationalist view of truth. Truth as "correspondence" with reality is one of two [End Page 107] key aspects of Peirce's account of truth (the other being, as Lane calls it, an "investigative aspect"). After works by Christopher Hookway, Cheryl Misak, and others that attempt to de-emphasize or obscure Peirce's representationalism, perhaps to make him more appealing to contemporary analytic "neopragmatists," it is absolutely refreshing to read a book that embraces Peirce's representationalism without apology.However, in the remainder of this review, I will focus on parts that I found troubling. Some of this trouble is probably due more to Peirce himself than to Lane's interpretation of Peirce. But some of it directly concerns Lane's interpretation. In particular, the parts of chapter 6 concerning Peirce's modal realism, while stimulating and enlightening, are also problematic. Further, I do not think that Lane's account of Peirce's idealism appropriately recognizes its similarity to Hegelian or Absolute idealism.To begin with Peirce's modal realism, Lane's discussion of it sets out by addressing the fact that, as Peirce recognizes, the conditionals comprising "pragmatic clarifications," or what result from applying the "pragmatic maxim" to a concept, must be in the hypothetical or subjunctive mood. This is in order to make sense of the truth of even indicative non-conditional propositions such as, to use Peirce's and Lane's example, "the diamond is hard." If the conditionals into which a concept is pragmatically clarified are in the indicative mood... (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between academic and public philosophy through the lens of Heidegger studies. Specifically, this essay: shows how Heidegger uses technical terminology within the context of the academy to break new philosophical ground; explains how suitably clarified technical terminology can be used to introduce people to Heidegger’s philosophy and to apply Heidegger’s ideas to current affairs; and illustrates how the application of Heidegger’s ideas to contemporary issues results in new forms of academic research. Ultimately, this essay argues (...) that there is a dialectical relationship between academic and public philosophy: i.e., public philosophy translates esoteric ideas developed in the academy into publicly accessible prose and then applies those ideas to daily life; but in doing so, public philosophy inspires new lines of academic inquiry. (shrink)

У цій статті змодельовано уявну розмову між двома мислителями ХХ століття: Джоном Роулзом і Майклом Оукшоттом. Розмова є «уявною», оскільки, окрім кількох невеличких зауважень, що можна знайти у їхній спадщині, жоден з них напряму не звертався до іншого. Стаття починається з аналізу Оукшоттового образу «раціоналіста» та відповідної традиції в історії політичної думки. Зокрема, у статті показано, що раціоналізм у політиці передбачає переконання, що розум є непохибним провідником у політичній діяльності і що раціоналіст прагне визначеності та досконалості в політичних справах. Далі (...) у статті висвітлено раціоналістичні тенденції в «Теорії справедливості» Роулза, а також проаналізовано Оукшоттову критику раціоналізму, яку застосовано й до Роулза. Якщо стисло, Оукшотт розрізняє технічне та практичне знання і стверджує, що принципи, з яких складаються технічні керівництва на кшталт «Теорії справедливості», є спрощенням і не замінюють розуміння, яке ми отримуємо через власний практичний досвід та участь у певній політичній традиції. Пояснюючи Оукшоттову критику раціоналізму та позиції Роулза, автор статті демонструє наявність елементів релятивізму у ставленні першого до політичних практик і традицій, а через це – формулює заперечення проти Оукшотта, які міг би висунути прихильник Роулза. В цьому контексті проаналізовано схильність Роулза до ліберальної традиції та релятивності, що імпліцитно присутня у його поясненні «рефлексивної рівноваги» та «розумності», а також зауважено схожість Роулза з Оукшоттом. Зрештою, у цій статті стверджується, що сила Роулзової позиції полягає не в тому, що сформульовані ним принципи справедливості встановлюються раціональними агентами у вихідній позиції, а в тому, що вони є принципами, які породжені й співзвучні з ідеями, що глибоко вкорінені у самій західній традиції. (shrink)

In Heidegger on Concepts, Freedom, and Normativity, Sacha Golob criticizes and offers an alternative to the standard interpretation of intentionality in Being and Time. According to Golob, the dominant reading’s derivation of propositional intentionality from practical intentionality fails on textual and philosophical grounds, so he develops a different approach that involves deriving propositional intentionality from prototype intentionality. In this essay, I offer an overview of dominant reading of intentionality in Being and Time and Golob’s alternative account, and then I criticize (...) them both for attempting to derive propositional intentionality for some form of non-propositional intentionality. Finally, I offer my own ontological interpretation of intentionality by arguing that Heidegger’s aim in Being and Time is not to derive one form of intentionality from another but to describe the basic aspects of human existence that make any and all forms of intentionality possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Apocalypse of Wisdom: Louis Bouyer's Theological Recovery of the Cosmos by Keith LemnaAaron WilliamsThe Apocalypse of Wisdom: Louis Bouyer's Theological Recovery of the Cosmos by Keith Lemna (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico, 2019), xxx + 488 pp.Keith Lemna has done the theological world a great service. In The Apocalypse of Wisdom: Louis Bouyer's Theological Recovery of the Cosmos, he offers the English-speaking world for the first time a monograph (...) on the thought of the Oratorian Louis Bouyer. Bouyer is undoubtedly one of the theological giants of the twentieth century. Born in Paris in 1913, he was ordained a Lutheran pastor in 1936. After only three years as a Lutheran clergyman, he was received into the Catholic Church at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Wandrille. Then ordained as an Oratorian priest in 1944, he taught from 1946 to 1962 at the Institut Catholique de Paris and abroad for the three decades following.1 He is most well-known for his work on the liturgy both before and after the Second Vatican Council. With fifty books to his name, including a nine-part synthesis on Christian doctrine, the breadth of his theological vision and work is astounding. In France he is considered one of the four preeminent theologians of the post-World War II era, and his theological contemporaries in Europe, such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI, always held the Oratorian in high regard.2 Yet, in the English-speaking world, much of his work has gone without comment.3 Thankfully, into the void steps this excellent work by Lemna. [End Page 1353]Anyone familiar with the Bouyerian corpus knows the challenge of approaching it. With its vast array of subject matter, ranging from biblical to liturgical to historical to spiritual to speculative theology, one wonders whether there is any one thread woven throughout the varied strands, a single theme around which the whole sprawling corpus can be understood. In fact, there is, and Lemna has deftly identified it. For Bouyer, the fundamental question of theology is the world's relation to God.4 The structure of the first six books of his nine-part treatise on systematic theology attest to the priority of the question with the first three works addressing the question of the world, or the economy of creation and salvation, and the latter three works addressing the question of God, or theology properly speaking: the doctrine of the Trinitarian God. Interestingly, though Bouyer's work on theological cosmology, Cosmos, is the third book in the series, it was, in fact, the last of the six to be written. In this sense, as Lemna points out, "Cosmos is a capstone monograph... summarizing in important ways the decisive first six volumes" (xiv). Theological cosmology fully illuminates the God–world relation as Bouyer sees it, and since this relation sits at the heart of his thought, Cosmos is for Bouyer both his "most personal, as well as most speculative work" and indeed, "opens up the meaning of his other writings" beyond the dogmatic sphere (25). One could, then, scarcely choose a better entry point into the wide theological world of this "mind with a very special character," as Joseph Ratzinger saw him.5The Apocalypse of Wisdom is an expansive commentary on Bouyer's cosmology at the heart of which is a liturgical, even nuptial, vision of the whole of creation known and loved in the mind of God from all eternity, as the uncreated Wisdom of God. In creation God freely gives existence to the world ex nihilo, so that it might return to him in a liturgical song of praise and thanksgiving, as the Bride of his eternal Son, the eschatological and cosmic Church, created wisdom now made glorious and radiant through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As Lemna puts it, "Bouyer shows that cosmology should be a pursuit of wisdom, but that Wisdom is ultimately a gift revealed or uncovered by means of apokalypsis in the re-creative interventions of the divine Word and Holy Spirit in history" (xvii). The wisdom of man seeking a unified vision of the whole of reality [End... (shrink)

This paper suggests that “systemic risk” has a distinctive kind of moral significance. Two intuitive data points need to be explained. The first is that the systematic imposition of risk can be wrongful or unjust in and of itself, even if harm never ensues. The second is that, even so, there may be no one in particular to blame. We can explain both ideas in terms of what I call responsibilities of “Collective Due Care.” Collective Due Care arguably precludes purely (...) aggregative cost-benefit decision-making and requires one kind of “precautionary” attitude in public choice. (shrink)

David Benatar argues that being brought into existence is always a net harm and never a benefit. I disagree. I argue that if you bring someone into existence who lives a life worth living (LWL), then you have not all things considered wronged her. Lives are worth living if they are high in various objective goods and low in objective bads. These lives constitute a net benefit. In contrast, lives worth avoiding (LWA) constitute a net harm. Lives worth avoiding are (...) net high in objective bads and low in objective goods. It is the prospect of a LWA that gives us good reason to not bring someone into existence. Happily, many lives are not worth avoiding. Contra Benatar, many are indeed worth living. Even if we grant Benatar his controversial asymmetry thesis, we have no reason to think that coming into existence is always a net harm. (shrink)

My favourite leading question when teaching Philosophy of Mind is ‘Could a goldfish long for its mother?’ This introduces the philosophical technique of ‘conceptual analysis’, essential for the study of mind (Sloman 1978, ch. 4). By analysing what we mean by ‘A longs for B’, and similar descriptions of emotional states we see that they inv olve rich cognitive structures and processes, i.e. computations. Anything which could long for its mother, would have to hav e some sort of representation of (...) its mother, would have to believe that she is not in the vicinity, would have to be able to represent the _possibility _of being close to her, would have to desire that possibility, and would have to be to some extent pre-occupied or obsessed with that desire. That is, it should intrude into and interfere with other activities, like admiring the scenery, catching smaller fish, etc. If the desire were there, but could be calmly put aside, whilst other interests were pursued, then it would not be truly a state of longing. It might be a state of preferring. Thus longing involves computational interrupts. The same seems to be true of all emotions. (shrink)

This paper outlines a design-based methodology for the study of mind as a part of the broad discipline of Artificial Intelligence. Within that framework some architectural requirements for human-like minds are discussed, and some preliminary suggestions made regarding mechanisms underlying motivation, emotions, and personality. A brief description is given of the `Nursemaid' or `Minder' scenario being used at the University of Birmingham as a framework for research on these problems. It may be possible later to combine some of these ideas (...) with work on synthetic agents inhabiting virtual reality environments. (shrink)

Du Châtelet holds that mathematical representations play an explanatory role in natural science. Moreover, she writes that things proceed in nature as they do in geometry. How should we square these assertions with Du Châtelet’s idealism about mathematical objects, on which they are ‘fictions’ dependent on acts of abstraction? The question is especially pressing because some of her important interlocutors (Wolff, Maupertuis, and Voltaire) denied that mathematics informs us about the properties of material things. After situating Du Châtelet in this (...) debate, this chapter argues, first, that her account of the origins of mathematical objects is less subjectivist than it might seem. Mathematical objects are non-arbitrary, public entities. While mathematical objects are partly mind-dependent, so are material things. Mathematical objects can approximate the material. Second, it is argued that this moderate metaphysical position underlies Du Châtelet’s persistent claims that mathematics is required for certain kinds of general knowledge, including in natural science. The chapter concludes with an illustrative example: an analysis of Du Châtelet’s argument that matter is continuous. A key premise in the argument is that mathematical representations and material nature correspond. (shrink)

This volume covers the major traditions of thought from Philo to Levinas and, since Jewish philosophy has occurred in broader environments, non-Jewish thinkers who have had an important influence on Jewish philosophy are also included.

This article uses Kalman P. Bland’s The Artless Jew as a way to think about the recent history of the study of Judaism. The discipline’s preoccupation with disembodied texts has led to a way to conceptualize and situate Jews and Judaism that leaves certain blind spots and lacunae within our dominant narratives. To illumine some of these, the article focuses on ritual and what we can learn about the study of ritual in Judaism – and the study of Judaism more (...) generally – by connecting it not to the particularities of Jewishness, but to the ostensible universalism of larger fields of study, such as the academic study of religion. (shrink)

Controversies over how to define the word religion have persisted for decades. It is a term of art and of academic study, but also one of governance, technologies, and of networks; it is a concept whose diversity is often its own worst enemy. Religion is as much a fuzzy set of conceptualizations and generalizations about a range of human activities as it is an authorizing system of persons, ideas, and practices. What is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion invites (...) readers to eavesdrop on scholarly debates over the limits of, and uses for, a word commonly used but infrequently defined in a precise manner. This volume takes the temperature of the modern field of Religious Studies by inviting a diverse group of scholars to offer their own substantive contribution that builds on the shared opening prompt, Religion is.... Their essays document the current state of the field and its various sub-fields, assess the progress that has been made over the past generation, and propose new directions for future work. Seventeen of the international field's leading scholars show how they work with each other's definition, or, sometimes, the lack of a definition. Of interest to students, scholars, and general readers alike, What is Religion? will provoke debate and provide insights into the state of the field. (shrink)

The affective sciences are essential to research regarding sustainable transition towards renewable energy. We focus on important questions that should be addressed by affective science in relation to the siting of large-scale renewable energy projects like wind and solar. Considering the recent acceleration of the transition, a more holistic understanding of negative and positive emotional responses to energy development will be essential. This is particularly important as the least controversial sites begin to dwindle in number. We break this commentary down (...) into four primary question categories for future research. These are the causal relationships between emotional elicitations and their sources, dual processing through cognitive and affective response, affect and its relationship with place, and how all of these elements change over time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 8.4 (2001) 317-322 [Access article in PDF] On Wolfgang Blankenburg, Common Sense, and Schizophrenia Aaron L. Mishara Introduction In its increasing openness to neuroscience (Cowan, Harter, and Kandel 2000) and other of its neighboring disciplines, mainstream biological psychiatry has allowed psychopathology, philosophy, and philosophical approaches to psychopathology to play an increased role in current research interests. Given this new openness, and the acknowledgment of (...) the severity of one of psychiatry's most debilitating, costly, and intractable disorders, 1 the translation of W. Blankenburg's 1969 article concerning the psychopathology of common sense does not merely serve historical interest. It is an exceptional example of a not well-known trend in German- and French-speaking psychiatry to apply philosophical phenomenology and existentialism to psychopathological research. This trend, which reached a peak in the late 1950s and was strong well into the 1970s, has dwindling, but nevertheless, current representatives in Heidelberg and Zurich and is scattered in a few other places in Europe, Japan, the United States, and South America. The view of the Zeitgeist—which may sound astonishing, even antiquated to contemporary readers—was highly ambitious: Conceptual approaches, such as philosophical ("transcendental") phenomenology, were expected to supply knowledge about the structure of consciousness and its disturbance in various mental disorders.Following the lead of Binswanger and Szilasi, who viewed schizophrenia as an "experiment of nature" that enables us to view underlying processes otherwise hidden to "natural, everyday consciousness," Blankenburg believed that it may be possible to map the formal properties of the psychopathology of schizophrenia—precisely in the loss of common sense—as a disturbance to the basic organization of conscious experience. Any attempt to summarize this rather abstract and complex approach in a brief commentary would be ill advised. In passing, rather, I will remark that such efforts could have profound relevance to the current research of schizophrenia and its underlying neurobiology. This research has gradually acknowledged the importance of taking the patient's subjective experience of the disorder into account (Mishara, Parnas, and Naudin 1998). In this commentary, I will first give an account of the biographical and clinical reasons that led Blankenburg to turn to the problem of common sense and its relevance for schizophrenia. I will then explore what implications [End Page 317] his work may have for more recent findings concerning schizophrenia. Blankenburg's Intellectual Development Born in 1928, W. Blankenburg, the son of a Lufthansa pilot who pioneered transatlantic commercial flights, began his studies in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1947. While at Freiburg, Blankenburg heard lectures in philosophy given by E. Fink (the former assistant to Husserl) and Max Mueller, and in psychology, by R. Heiss and others. After three years, Blankenburg turned to the study of medicine, producing a dissertation in 1956 on an application of Daseinsanalysis (Heidegger and Binswanger) to a case of paranoid schizophrenia. Binswanger wrote the forward to the publication. Between 1956 and 1958, Blankenburg studied internal medicine in Heidelberg with the accomplished phenomenologist of bodily experience (Leibphaenomenologer) and student of V. von Weizsaecker Herbert Pluegge. He spent one semester in Goettingen where he attended lectures by the ontological philosopher Nicolai Hartmann, who provided for Blankenburg a more useful approach to the problem of nature and natural science than Heidegger's primary emphasis on the question of Being. During his Freiburg years, Blankenburg attended small seminars led by Heidegger in the Schwarzwald forest. (Heidegger had been forbidden to teach after the end of World War II.) Blankenburg recalls that the participants would sit on logs in an open field as if to invoke Heidegger's concept of the clearing (Lichtung) of Being. While not entirely sympathetic with Heidegger's philosophy, Blankenburg learned to carefully "listen"—as Heidegger would repeatedly emphasize—to language, not merely poetic or philosophical language, but the language of the patients he would meet in clinical practice.During this time, Blankenburg heard lectures by W. Szilasi, the philosopher-scientist who held Husserl's and Heidegger's chair in the department of philosophy. Szilasi collaborated with the phenomenological psychiatrist, L. Binswanger. Their effort to apply concepts from Husserl's... (shrink)

This paper offers a short and biased overview of the history of discussion and controversy about the role of different forms of representation in intelligent agents. It repeats and extends some of the criticisms of the `logicist' approach to AI that I first made in 1971, while also defending logic for its power and generality. It identifies some common confusions regarding the role of visual or diagrammatic reasoning including confusions based on the fact that different forms of representation may be (...) used at different levels in an implementation hierarchy. This is contrasted with the way in the use of one form of representation (e.g. pictures) can be {\em controlled} using another (e.g. logic, or programs). Finally some questions are asked about the role of metrical information in biological visual systems. (shrink)

This discussion responds to important questions raised about my theory of fairness in the global economy by Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, A.J. Julius and Kristi Olson. I further elaborate how moral argument can be ‘internal’ to a social practice, how my proposed principles of fairness depend on international practice, how I can admit several relevant conceptions of ‘harm’ and why my account does not depend on a problematic conception of societal ‘endowments’.

The paper suggests that the state is subject to assessment according to principles of social justice because state institutions or practices exercise forms of power over which no particular person has control. This rationale for assessment of social justice equally applies to legally optional or informal social practices. But it does not apply to individual conduct. Indeed, it follows that principles of social justice cannot provide a basis for the assessment and guidance of individual choice. The paper develops this practice-based (...) conception of the subject of justice by rejoining G. A. Cohen's influential critique of Rawls’ focus on the “basic structure” of society. (shrink)

This article focuses on how aesthetic values permeate Nietzsche’s philosophy. Artistry is not confined to the creation of conventional works of art but occurs in the form-giving that is essential to all human forms of life. Since Nietzsche was committed to the view that the world is in some basic sense chaotic and meaningless, he held that only by imposing forms can we create a cognizable world. This close association between the conditions of life itself and the aesthetic activity of (...) giving form belies that Kantian conception that any appreciation of aesthetic phenomena is essentially disinterested. (shrink)

CONJECTURE: Alongside the innate physical sucking reflex for obtaining milk to be digested, decomposed and used all over the body for growth, repair, and energy, there is a genetically determined information-sucking reflex, which seeks out, sucks in, and decomposes information, which is later recombined in many ways, growing the information-processing architecture and many diverse recombinable competences.

Nietzsche is often said to have started out as a Schopenhauerian metaphysician of some kind before leaving Schopenhauer behind him, and, by the end of his sane life, metaphysics too. His first and last thoughts about tragedy, however, sit uneasily with this narrative. The late thoughts are simply too close to the early ones for the story to accommodate them—not for their Schopenhauerianism, but for the strongly metaphysical flavour that they appear to share. The argument of the present paper is (...) that the appearance is veridical, and that attempts to explain away the metaphysical flavour of the later remarks cannot succeed. The paper concludes with a brief diagnosis of why Nietzsche's final thoughts about tragedy, in Twilight of the Idols, so unignorably recall the ones expressed in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. (shrink)

In both environmental ethics and bioethics, one central issue is the range of entities that are morally considerable. According to one view on this issue, we ought to extend consideration to any entity that possesses interests. But what kinds of entities possess interests? Some philosophers have argued that only sentient beings can have interests, while others have held that all living organisms possess interests in the fulfillment of their biological functions. Is it true that all living organisms have biological interests? (...) The standard arguments made against biological interests are unsatisfactory. There are two central reasons why we ought to reject the idea of biological interests: a metaphysical reason and a normative reason. First, the idea of biological interests implies a metaphysically mysterious account of the nature of how things come to have value for an entity. Second, as normative interests, the idea of biological interests implies that what is good for human beings is at least partly determined by things that are external to themselves, completely independent of their capacities for desires, conflicting with the individual ideal of self-direction, according to which it is fundamentally desirable that how we ought to live (or what is good for one) is grounded in one’s own capacities for desires. It is still an open possibility that nonsentient entities may be morally considerable in the sense of having intrinsic value. (shrink)