This reprint of a collection of essays on problems concerning future generations examines questions such as whether intrinsic value should be placed on the preservation of mankind, what are our obligations to posterity, and whether potential people have moral rights.

I shall argue here that the reason supererogatory acts are not obligatory is that they require too much personal sacrifice, and that in order for an act to be supererogatory, it must have a kind of result that you would have an obligation to bring about if you could do so with no personal sacrifice. I further argue that traditional utilitarianism should be modified so as not to treat supererogatory acts as obligatory.

Act Utilitarianism has traditionally been regarded as the view that you should always perform the action that will bring about the greatest possible excess of happiness over unhappiness or, if there is no such alternative, the least possible excess of unhappiness over happiness.1 Following Rawls, I shall call this the classical principle. An alternative which Rawls calls the average principle is the view that you should always do the thing that will bring about the highest possible average happiness level. Rawls, (...) Rescher and Broad2 regard the average principle as superior to the classical principle, and there are considerable grounds for supposing that Mill accepted the average principle.3 Smart favours the classical position but confesses that if someone doesn't feel the same way, he doesn't know how to argue with him.4. (shrink)

If the argument from analogy is an argument for other minds it must rely on a single case, The correlation of your mind with your body. If instead it only attempts to show that certain sorts of experiences are associated with other bodies, It can rely on innumerable correlations of your experiences with your behavior. Having determined in this way that ostensive memories are associated with another body and that they are the kind one would expect if one mind had (...) been associated with this body throughout its existence, You can then offer another argument to this effect--And you could do so even if your own memories associated your own experiences with a succession of different bodies. (shrink)

John Searle attempts to show through a consideration of promising that at least some ‘ought’ statements can be derived from ‘is’ statements. He thinks that you can determine on purely factual grounds that a person has made a promise, and that it follows logically from the statement that a person has made a promise that he has at least a prima facie obligation to do the thing he promised to do. I agree with but not with.

Przedmiotem rozważań jest zagadnienie wyjątkowości człowieka w świecie zwierząt. Przedstawione są: socjobiologiczna definicja altruizmu, rozróżnienie na altruizm twardy i miękki, koncepcja memu. Artykuł odpowiada na pytanie: czy altruistyczne zachowanie jest cechą specyficznie ludzką?

Tematem rozważań jest ludzka agresja. Czy agresja jest wrodzona? Jak sposób rozumienia tego, czym jest agresja, wpływa na sposoby radzenia sobie ze szkodliwymi skutkami zachowań agresywnych?

There has been a revival of interest in Hegel of late among English-speaking philosophers. Although he is still regarded as maddeningly obscure, a number of important philosophers have been attracted by a doctrine prominently associated with Hegel, the coherence theory of truth. In order to hold the coherence theory of truth, it is obvious that you must hold what might be called the coherence theory of truth-testing as well: for if this theory is wrong and we can test some statements (...) by, for example, introspection as well as in terms of coherence, truth must involve something more than just coherence. My arguments against the coherence theory of truth-testing, since it is implied by the coherence theory proper, are indirectly against the coherence theory as well. I also argue that unless some version of the Private Language Argument is successful, it is virtually impossible to defend the coherence theory of truth-testing without denying the existence of experiences, thereby committing oneself to materialism. (shrink)

There has been a revival of interest in Hegel of late among English-speaking philosophers. Although he is still regarded as maddeningly obscure, a number of important philosophers have been attracted by a doctrine prominently associated with Hegel, the coherence theory of truth. In order to hold the coherence theory of truth, it is obvious that you must hold what might be called the coherence theory of truth-testing as well: for if this theory is wrong and we can test some statements (...) by, for example, introspection as well as in terms of coherence, truth must involve something more than just coherence. My arguments against the coherence theory of truth-testing, since it is implied by the coherence theory proper, are indirectly against the coherence theory as well. I also argue that unless some version of the Private Language Argument is successful, it is virtually impossible to defend the coherence theory of truth-testing without denying the existence of experiences, thereby committing oneself to materialism. (shrink)

In “Incorrigibility as the Mark of the Mental,” Richard Rorty argues that although there is no characteristic that marks off everything that is mental, the contents of the stream of consciousness may be considered as that which is paradigmatically mental, and they are distinguished by the fact that sincere first-person reports about them are currently treated as incorrigible. He adds that “beliefs, desires, moods, emotions, intentions, etc.“ are also taken to be mental because reports about them are almost incorrigible.

I try to show that there is much sap (synthetic a priori) knowledge although one may not find many, or even any, sap true statements in most natural languages. Reasons are given for the difficulty of expressing sap truths in natural languages, but it is argued that these are not necessary features of language as such. There are, then, sap true statements in some possible languages.Admission of the sap gives one a way of distinguishing logical from metaphysical possiblity. Something is (...) metaphysically impossible just in case it is a sap truth that it is impossible. I argue that the realm of logically possible entities is vastly larger than the realm of metaphysically possible entities.My.defence of the sap begins with a partial defence of the analytic/synthetic distinction. In particular, I attack the intentionality circle argument,Quine's indeterminacy thesis and some applications of the Kripke/Putnam theory of meaning for natural kind terms. Without being a conclusive defence of the analytic/synthetic distinction, this section makes the defence of the sap more secure. Arguments are then mounted in direct defence of the sap by showing that the purported reduction of sap truths to analytic truths is mistaken. Examples are adduced to show that, even where expressions of natural language fail, one can stipulate usage in ways that allow expression of sap truths. I then consider and reply to various objections, giving an example of the sort of meaning theory which illegitimately legislates the analyticity of any purported sap true statement. (shrink)