McCullough et al. argue that humans possess evolved computational systems for implementing retaliatory behavior that both deters aggression and promotes subsequent reconciliation. However, they do not apply this analysis to the sphere of intergroup relations. We believe their model can be usefully extended to this domain and discuss why this would be possible, pertinent, and productive.

Three eminent scientists analyze the scientific, social, and political roots of biological determinism.

In September 2008, 10 years after the untimely death of Pere Alberch (1954–1998), the 20th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology gathered a group of Pere’s students, col- laborators, and colleagues (Figure 1) to celebrate his contribu- tions to the origins of EvoDevo. Hosted by the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI) outside Vienna, the group met for two days of discussion. The meeting was organized in tandem with a congress held in May 2008 at the Cavanilles Institute (...) for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (ICBiBE) in Valencia, Spain. The talks at the KLI were equal parts: nostalgic remembrance, excitement over new ways of thinking about old problems, and an unrepressed vitriol against the resurgence of reductionist thinking in EvoDevo. Here we highlight some of the key aspects of Pere’s life and work that informed and infused the talks. (shrink)

Rose erroneously believes that the sciences of human behavior are being swept with a wave of genetic determinism. Actually, sociologists and psychologists remain predominantly hostile to any genetic influence on behavior. They will love Rose. The few behavior geneticists and sociobiologists in these disciplines are marginalized and looking for a little respect. Rose impugns their motives and ridicules their science.

Prostate cancer has become a major health concern of male Americans. It is now the most common nondermatologic cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among men. The incidence of detected prostate cancer rose rapidly in recent years, partly because of prostate-specific antigen testing; it is only now tapering off. Screening for prostate cancer with PSA is widespread in the United States, yet controversial: the American Urological Association recommends PSA screening and the American Cancer Society recommends offering (...) screening; however, the United States Preventive Services Task Force and the American College of Physicians recommend against routine screening; and the American Academy of Family Physicians believes that the decision to screen should be left to the patient. (shrink)

Prostate cancer has become a major health concern of male Americans. It is now the most common nondermatologic cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among men. The incidence of detected prostate cancer rose rapidly in recent years, partly because of prostate-specific antigen testing; it is only now tapering off. Screening for prostate cancer with PSA is widespread in the United States, yet controversial: the American Urological Association recommends PSA screening and the American Cancer Society recommends offering (...) screening; however, the United States Preventive Services Task Force and the American College of Physicians recommend against routine screening; and the American Academy of Family Physicians believes that the decision to screen should be left to the patient. (shrink)

"A fascinating and timely treatment of the objectivism versus relativism debates occurring in philosophy of science, literary theory, the social sciences, ...

In her recent, provocative essay “What Is the Point of Equality?”, Elizabeth Anderson argues against a common ideal of egalitarian justice that she calls “ luck egalitarianism” and in favor of an approach she calls “democratic equality.”1 According to the luck egalitarian, the aim of justice as equality is to eliminate so far as is possible the impact on people’s lives of bad luck that falls on them through no fault or choice of their own. In the ideal luck egalitarian (...) society, there are no inequalities in people’s life prospects except those that arise through processes of voluntary choice or faulty conduct, for which the agents involved can reasonably be held responsible. Anderson asserts that the adherents of luck egalitarianism, which can be elaborated in many different ways, include John Roemer, Erik Rakowski, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, Gerald Cohen, Richard Arneson, and Philippe Van Parijs.2 In contrast, according to the democratic equality conception, justice as equality requires an end to oppressive social relationships. In the ideal society of democratic equality, the social conditions of everyone’s freedom are secured, each stands to every other in a relationship of fundamental equality, including equal respect, and all have real freedom to participate in democratic self-government. (shrink)

What is the good for human persons? If I am trying to lead the best possible life I could lead, not the morally best life, but the life that is best for me, what exactly am I seeking?This phrasing of the question I will be pursuing may sound tendentious, so some explanation is needed. What is good for one person, we ordinarily suppose, can conflict with what is good for other persons and with what is required by morality. A prudent (...) person seeks her own good efficiently; she selects the best available means to her good. If we call the value that a person seeks when she is being prudent “prudential value,” then an alternative rendering of the question to be addressed in this essay is “What is prudential value?” We can also say that an individual flourishes or has a life high in well-being when her life is high in prudential value. Of course, these common-sense appearances that the good for an individual, the good for other persons, and the requirements of morality often are in conflict might be deceiving. For all that I have said here, the correct theory of individual good might yield the result that sacrificing oneself for the sake of other people or for the sake of a morally worthy cause can never occur, because helping others and being moral always maximize one's own good. But this would be the surprising result of a theory, not something we should presuppose at the start of inquiry. When a friend has a baby and I express a conventional wish that the child have a good life, I mean a life that is good for the child, not a life that merely helps others or merely respects the constraints of morality. After all, a life that is altruistic and perfectly moral, we suppose, could be a life that is pure hell for the person who lives it—a succession of horrible headaches marked by no achievements or attainments of anything worthwhile and ending in agonizing death at a young age. So the question remains, what constitutes a life that is good for the person who is living it? (shrink)

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Individual differences in emotional reactivity or affective style can be decomposed into more elementary constituents. Several separable of affective style are identified such as the threshold for reactivity, peak amplitude of response, the rise time to peak and the recovery time. latter two characteristics constitute components of affective chronometry The circuitry that underlies two fundamental forms of motivation and and withdrawal-related processes-is described. Data on differences in functional activity in certain components of these are next reviewed, with an emphasis on (...) the nomological network of surrounding individual differences in asymmetric prefrontal The relevance of such differences for understanding the nature affective dysfunction in affective disorders is then considered. The ends by considering what the prefrontal cortex “does” in certain of affective style and highlights some of the important questions for future research. (shrink)

Joel Feinberg was a brilliant philosopher whose work in social and moral philosophy is a legacy of excellent, even stunning achievement. Perhaps his most memorable achievement is his four-volume treatise on The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, and perhaps the most striking jewel in this crowning achievement is his passionate and deeply insightful treatment of paternalism.1 Feinberg opposes Legal Paternalism, the doctrine that “it is always a good reason in support of a [criminal law] prohibition that it is necessary (...) to prevent harm (physical, psychological, or economic) to the actor himself.” Against this doctrine Feinberg asserts that when an agent’s sufficiently voluntary choice causes harm to herself or risk of harm to herself, this category of harm-to-self is never a good reason in support of criminal law prohibition of that type of conduct. (shrink)

Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen’s interesting criticisms of the ideal of equality of opportunity for welfare provide a welcome occasion for rethinking the requirements of egalitarian distributive justice.1 In the essay he criticizes I had proposed that insofar as we think distributive justice requires equality of any sort, we should conceive of distributive equality as equal opportunity provision. Roughly put, my suggestion was that equality of opportunity for welfare obtains among a group of people when all would have the same expected welfare over (...) the course of their lives if each behaved as prudently as it would be reasonable to expect her to behave. My specific proposal was more demanding, holding that when an age cohort reaches the onset of responsible adulthood, they enjoy equal opportunity for welfare when for each of them, the best sequence of choices that it would be reasonable to expect the person to follow would yield the same expected welfare for all, the second-best sequence of choices would also yield the same expected welfare for all, and so on through the array of lifetime choice sequences each faces. (In the jargon of my 1989 essay, equal opportunity for welfare obtains when everyone faces effectively equivalent sets of life options.). (shrink)

Philosophers perennially debate the nature of the good for humans. Is it subjective or objective? That is to say, do the things that are intrinsically good for an agent, good for their own sakes and apart from further consequences, acquire this status only in virtue of how she happens to regard them? Or are there things that are good in themselves for an individual independently of her desires and attitudes toward them? The issue sounds recondite, but has been thought to (...) be pregnant with implications for politics as it ought to be. Plato vigorously insists that knowledge of the good is precious and the person who has it is uniquely fit to rule: "In the world of knowledge, the last thing to be perceived and only with great difficulty is the essential Form of Goodness. Once it is perceived, the conclusion must follow that, for all things, this is the cause of whatever is right and good; in the visible world it gives birth to the light and to the lord of light, while it is itself sovereign in the intelligible world and the parent of wisdom and truth. Without having had a vision of this Form no one can act with wisdom, either in his own life or in matters of state.". (shrink)

All humans have an equal basic moral status. They possess the same fundamental rights, and the comparable interests of each person should count the same in calculations that determine social policy. Neither supposed racial differences, nor skin color, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, intelligence, nor any other differences among humans negate their fundamental equal worth and dignity. These platitudes are virtually universally affirmed. A white supremacist racist or an admirer of Adolf Hitler who denies them is rightly regarded as beyond the (...) pale of civilized dialogue. However, a very simple line of argument developed by Peter Singer challenges our understanding of these platitudes and forces us to rethink the basis and nature of the moral equality of all humans. What I call the “Singer Problem” arises if one accepts that the morally significant cognitive capacities that are relevant to the determination of the fundamental moral status of a being vary from individual to individual by degree. The problem is to specify a moral principle determining fundamental moral status that assigns a superior status to humans compared to other animals on the basis of the superior cognitive capacities of humans but also assigns all human persons an equal fundamental moral status regardless of their differing cognitive capacities. More broadly posed, the problem is to specify moral principles that yield intuitively satisfactory implications for the treatment of human individuals and other individual animals given that cognitive capacities differ across species and individuals. A search for a resolution of the Singer problem leads to disappointing results. (shrink)

In recent years some moral philosophers and political theorists, who have come to be called “luck egalitarians,” have urged that the essence of social justice is the moral imperative to improve the condition of people who suffer from simple bad luck. Prominent theorists who have attracted the luck egalitarian label include Ronald Dworkin, G. A. Cohen, and John Roemer.1 Larry Temkin should also be included in this group, as should Thomas Nagel at the time that he wrote Equality and Partiality.2 (...) However, each of these theorists asserts a different position. The common ground, if any, is obscure. The idea of luck that is invoked is not transparently clear. Anyway, the term “luck egalitarianism” was coined by a critic of the doctrine, and tendentiously defined to denote an extreme version of the view that looks implausible from the start.3 With some justice Ronald Dworkin, perhaps the chief architect of the luck egalitarian position, has denied that he is a luck egalitarian. (shrink)

The development of a defensible and fecund notion of emergence has been dogged by a number of threshold issues neatly highlighted in a recent paper by Jaegwon Kim. We argue that physicalist assumptions confuse and vitiate the whole project. In particular, his contention that emergence entails supervenience is contradicted by his own argument that the ‘microstructure’ of an object belongs to the whole object, not to its constituents. And his argument against the possibility of downward causation is question-begging and makes (...) false assumptions about causal sufficiency. We argue, on the contrary, for a rejection of the deeply entrenched assumption, shared by physicalists and Cartesians alike, that what basically exists are things (entities, substances). Our best physics tells us that there are no basic particulars, only fields in process. We need an ontology which gives priority to organization, which is inherently relational. Reflection upon the fact that all biological creatures are far-from-equilibrium systems, whose very persistence depend upon their interactions with their environment, reveals incoherence in the notion of an ‘emergence base’. (shrink)

Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. The Essays: Philosophy, History, and Critique.

(No abstract is available for this citation).

This essay surveys varieties of the luck egalitarian project in an exploratory spirit, seeking to identify lines of thought that are worth developing further and that might ultimately prove morally acceptable. I do not attend directly to the critics and assess their concerns; I have done that in other essays. 7 I do seek to identify some large fault lines, divisions in ways of approaching the task of constructing a theory of justice or of conceiving its substance. These are controversial (...) in the sense that in the present state of discussion it is unclear how best to view them or to which side it is better to scramble. But in the end of course I’m not a moral geographer and map-maker, just an involved spectator/tourist offering yet another view of the cathedral. (shrink)

Some theories of justice hold that individuals placed in fortunate circumstances through no merit or choice of their own are morally obligated to aid individuals placed in unfortunate circumstances through no fault or choice of their own. In these theories what are usually regarded as obligations of benevolence are reinterpreted as strict obligations of justice. A closely related view is that the institutions of a society should be arranged in a way that gives priority to helping people placed in unfortunate (...) circumstances through no fault or choice of their own. Any theory of this type needs a way of assessing individuals’ circumstances to determine who is fortunate and who is unfortunate. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Ideal of Democracy In Favor of Instrumentalism The Instrumentalist Case against Democracy Democracy and Mutual Respect Rights, Disagreement, and Democracy Political Liberalism The Ideal of Democratic Equality Conclusion Notes.

This essay examines several possible rationales for the egalitarian judgment that justice requires better-off individuals to help those who are worse off even in the absence of social interaction. These rationales include equality (everyone should enjoy the same level of benefits), moral meritocracy (each should get benefits according to her responsibility or deservingness), the threshold of sufficiency (each should be assured a minimally decent quality of life), prioritarianism (a function of benefits to individuals should be maximized that gives priority to (...) the worse off), and mixed views. A case is made for adopting either prioritarianism or a mixed view that gives priority both to the worse off and to the more responsible and deserving. (shrink)

This paper attempts a defense of John Stuart Mill’s absolute ban against paternalistic restrictions on liberty. Mill’s principle looks more credible once we recognize that some instances of what are thought to be justified instances of paternalism are not instances of paternalism at all—e.g. anti-duelling laws. An interpretation of Mill’s argument is advanced which stresses his commitment to autonomy and his suggestion that exactly the same reasons which favor absolute freedom of speech also favor an absolute prohibition of paternalism. Alternative (...) expositions and appraisals of Mill by Gerald Dworkin and Joel Feiriberg are criticized. Finally, consideration is given to two arguments that render Mill’s principle trivial via the denial that there are any significant self-regarding actions. (shrink)

Some theorists hold that there is no serious, significant issue concerning cosmopolitanism. They hold that cosmopolitanism is either the anodyne doctrine that we have some duties to distant strangers merely on the ground of shared humanity or the absurd doctrine that we have no special moral duties based on special-ties such as those of friendship, family, and national community. This essay argues against this deflationary position by defending (1) a very extreme cosmopolitan doctrine that denies special-tie moral duties altogether and (...) (2) a slightly milder but still extreme form of cosmopolitanism that allows that there might be special-tie moral duties to intimate associates such as friends and family members but denies that broader social group associations such as those of subjection to a national state or national or ethnic community memberships ever constitute special ties that ground special moral duties. The defense proceeds by rebutting bad arguments leveled against extreme cosmopolitanisms. (shrink)

Prioritarianism holds that improvements in someone's life are morally more valuable, the worse off the person would otherwise be. The doctrine is impartial, holding that a gain in one person's life counts exactly the same as an identical gain in the life of anyone equally well off. If we have some duty of beneficence to make the world better, prioritarianism specifies the content of the duty. Unlike the utilitarian, the prioritarian holds that we should not only seek to increase human (...) well-being, but also distribute it fairly across persons, by tilting in favor of the worse off. A variant version adds that we should also give priority to the morally deserving – to saints over scoundrels. The view is a standard for right choice of individual actions and public policies, offering a distinctive alternative to utilitarianism, sufficiency and egalitarianism. (shrink)

At present, there is an enormous gulf between the visibility of evil and the paucity of our intellectual resources for coming to grips with it. We have been flooded with images of death camps, terrorist attacks and horrendous human suffering. Yet when we ask what we mean by radical evil and how we are to account for it, we seem to be at a loss for proper responses. Bernstein seeks to discover what we can learn about the meaning of evil (...) and human responsibility. He turns to philosophers such as Kant, who coined the expression 'radical evil', as well as to Hegel and Schelling. He also examines more recent explorations of evil, namely the thinking of Freud and Nietzsche on the moral psychology of evil. Finally, he looks at the way in which three post-Holocaust thinkers - Emmanuel Levinas, Hans Jonas, and Hannah Arendt - have sought to come to grips with evil "after Auschwitz." Bernstein's primary concern throughout this challenging book is to enrich and deepen our understanding of evil in the contemporary world, and to emphasize the vigilance and personal responsibility required for combating it. Radical Evil will be essential reading for students and scholars of philosophy, social and political theory, and religious studies. (shrink)

This essay disputes G. A. Cohen's claim that John Rawls's argument for the difference principle involves an argument from moral arbitrariness to equality and then an illicit move away from equality. Moreover, the claim that an argument from moral arbitrariness establishes equality as the essential distributive justice ideal is found wanting.

This article presents a model of the structure of emotion developed primarily from a consideration of neuropsychological evidence and behavioural data which have bearing on neuropsychological theories. Valence is first considered and highlighted as a defining characteristic of emotion. Next, the use of facial behaviour and autonomic nervous system patterns as defining characteristics of discrete emotions is questioned on empirical and conceptual grounds. The regulation of emotion is considered and proposed to affect the very structure of emotion itself. If there (...) is an invariant pattern of biological activity across different instantiations of the same emotion, it is likely to be found in higher-order associative networks of central nervous system activity, the very same networks that subserve goal-directed behaviour and other cognitive functions. Drawing upon evolutionary considerations, it is argued that what is basic about emotion are the dimensions of approach and withdrawal. The nature of the linkage between such action tendencies and emotion is discussed. (shrink)

Richard J. Bernstein argues that many of the important themes in philosophy during the past 150 years are variations and developments of ideas that were prominent in the classical American pragmatists: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George H. Mead. The pragmatic thinkers reject a sharp dichotomy between subject and object, mind-body dualism, the quest for certainty, and the spectator theory of knowledge. They seek to bring about a sea change in philosophy that highlights the social character (...) of human experience and normative social practices, the self-correcting nature of all inquiry, and the continuity of theory and practice. And they - especially James, Dewey, and Mead - emphasize the democratic ethical-political consequences of a pragmatic orientation. Many of the themes developed by the pragmatic thinkers were central to the work of major twentieth-century philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Heidegger, but the so-called analytic/Continental split obscures this underlying continuity. Bernstein develops an alternative reading of contemporary philosophy that brings out the persistence and continuity of pragmatic themes. He explains why the discussion of pragmatism is alive, varied, and widespread"--Jacket. (shrink)

Recently in the U.S. a near-consensus has formed around the idea that it would be desirable to "end welfare as we know it," in the words of President Bill Clinton.1 In this context, the term "welfare" does not refer to the entire panoply of welfare state provision including government sponsored old age pensions, government provided medical care for the elderly, unemployment benefits for workers who have lost their jobs without being fired for cause, or aid to the disabled. "Welfare" in (...) contemporary debates means "cash, food, or housing assistance to healthy nonaged persons with low incomes."2 In the U.S., the main policy that qualifies as welfare in this sense is Aid to Families with Dependent Children.3 Although contemporary attacks on welfare are identified with conservative policy analysts such as Charles Murray, in fact dissatisfaction with the policies Murray targets for criticism is widespread among liberal intellectuals. For example, in a sharply critical review essay on Murray's book Losing Ground, Christopher Jencks worries that "the social policies that prevailed from 1964 to 1980 often seemed to reward vice" instead of rewarding virtuous conduct by the poor. The problem as Jencks, following Murray, views it is not easy to repair, because "if you set out to help people who are in trouble, you almost always find that most of them are to some extent responsible for their present troubles. Few victims are completely innocent. Helping those who are not doing their best to help themselves poses extraordinarily difficult moral and political problems."4 David T. Ellwood writes that Murray “is almost certainly correct in stating that welfare does not reflect or reinforce our most basic values. He is also correct in stating that no amount of tinkering with benefit levels or work rules will change that.”. (shrink)

In this major new work, Bernstein explores the ethical and political dimensions of the modernity/post-modernity debate. Bernstein argues that modernity / post-modernity should be understood as a kind of mood - one which is amorphous, shifting and protean but which exerts a powerful influence on our current thinking. Focusing on thinkers such as Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas and Rorty, Bernstein probes the strengths and weaknesses of their work, and shows how they have contributed to the formation of a new mood, (...) a new and distinctive constellation of ideas. This new constellation has put ethical and political issues back on the philosophical agenda, forcing us to confront anew, the Socratic question 'How should I live?'. (shrink)

In their celebrated essay “The Right to Privacy,” legal scholars Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis identified as the generic privacy value “the right to be let alone.” This same phrase occurs in Justice Brandeis's dissent inOlmstead v. U.S.(1927). This characterization of privacy has been found objectionable by philosophers acting as conceptual police. For example, moral philosopher William Parent asserts that one can wrongfully fail to let another person alone in all sorts of ways—such as assault—that intuitively do not qualify as (...) violations of privacy and thus cannot be violations of the right to privacy. (shrink)