This study of American intellectual histories sketches their development from colonial chronicles to today's professional scholarship. It concentrates upon the writings of a dozen or more major historians between the late 1800's and the middle 1900's who have contributed to the study of the history of ideas in America, including Moses Coit Tyler, Edward Eggleston, Charles Beard, Carl Becker, Vernon Farrington, Merle Curti, Perry Miller, and Ralph Gabriel. The various histories are analyzed partly from the perspective of a developing scholarly (...) discipline and partly from the perspective of the "climate of opinion" in which the histories were written. The methods employed by the historians in studying ideas, as well as the substantive interpretations expressed in the histories, are analyzed in relation to the "world-views" or "ideological positions" of the historians themselves. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a cross-cultural study that examines the relationship between spirituality and a consumer’s ethical predisposition, and further examines the relationship between the internalization of one’s moral identity and a consumer’s ethical predisposition. Finally, the moderating impact of cultural factors on the above relationships is tested using Hofstede’s five dimensions. Data were gathered from young adult, well-educated consumers in five different countries, namely the U.S., France, Spain, India, and Egypt. The results indicate that the more spiritual (...) an individual consumer is, the more likely that consumer is to be ethically predisposed. Furthermore, the stronger one’s internalization of a moral identity, the more likely one is to be ethically predisposed. These two relationships are further moderated by Hofstede’s cultural factors such as the degree of collectivism versus individualism in the culture. However, the strength and direction of the moderation may vary depending upon the specific Hofstede dimension. (shrink)

The authors articulate a global public standard for the normative legitimacy of global governance institutions. This standard can provide the basis for principled criticism of global governance institutions and guide reform efforts in circumstances in which people disagree deeply about the demands of global justice and the role that global governance institutions should play in meeting them.

Preventive use of force may be defined as the initiation of military action in anticipation of harmful actions that are neither presently occurring nor imminent. This essay explores the permissibility of preventive war from a cosmopolitan normative perspective, one that recognizes the basic human rights of all persons, not just citizens of a particular country or countries. It argues that preventive war can only be justified if it is undertaken within an appropriate rule-governed, institutional framework that is designed to help (...) protect vulnerable countries against unjustified interventions while also avoiding unacceptable risks of the costs of inaction. The key to ensuring the fairness of rules governing the preventive use of force is accountability.This essay proposes a scheme that would make those promoting and those rejecting the preventive use of force more accountable. The proposal contains the following crucial features:States proposing preventive war are required to enter into a contract with a diverse body of states as a condition for authorization of their actions;Prior to taking preventive action, states must make an evidence-based case to the UN Security Council, and agree in advance to submit themselves to an evaluation by an impartial body after the preventive action occurred;Both proponents of action and those opposing it will be held accountable ex post for the accuracy of their prior statements and the proportionality of their actions;Sanctions will be imposed against intervening states or states that opposed preventive action, respectively, depending on the findings of the ex post evaluation.If preventive action were blocked in the Security Council, states seeking to engage in preventive action could then present their case in a different body–a coalition of democratic states–with its own ex post and ex ante accountability procedures. (shrink)

Drawing on Aristotle’s notion of “ultimate responsibility,” Robert Kane argues that to be exercising a free will an agent must have taken some character forming decisions for which there were no sufficient conditions or decisive reasons.¹ That is, an agent whose will is free not only had the ability to develop other dispositions, but could have exercised that ability without being irrational. To say it again, a person has a free will just in case her character is the product (...) of decisions that she could have rationally avoided making. That one’s character is the product of such decisions entails ultimate responsibility for its manifestations, engendering a free will. (shrink)

Kant was one of the inventors of anthropology, and his lectures on anthropology were the most popular and among the most frequently given of his lecture courses. This volume contains the first translation of selections from student transcriptions of the lectures between 1772 and 1789, prior to the published version, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, which Kant edited himself at the end of his teaching career. The two most extensive texts, Anthropology Friedländer and Anthropology Mrongovius, are presented here (...) in their entirety, along with selections from all the other lecture transcriptions published in the Academy edition, together with sizeable portions of the Menschenkunde, first published in 1831. These lectures show that Kant had a coherent and well-developed empirical theory of human nature bearing on many other aspects of his philosophy, including cognition, moral psychology, politics and philosophy of history. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there is a causal condition on perception, and that this condition is a conceptual truth about perception. A highly influential argument for this claim is based on intuitive responses to Gricean-style thought experiments. Do the folk share the intuitions of philosophers? Roberts et al. (2016) presented participants with two kinds of cases: Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a mirror and a pillar) and Non-Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a clock and brain stimulation). (...) They found that a substantial minority agreed that seeing occurs in the Non-Blocker cases, and that in the Blocker cases significantly less agreed that seeing occurs. They thus hypothesized that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition than with a causal condition. This paper continues this line of enquiry with two new experiments. The paper investigates the generality and robustness of Roberts et al.’s findings by expanding the sense modalities tested from only vision to audition and olfaction as well. The paper also uses Gricean-style thought experiments as a case study for investigating the “reflection defense” against the negative project in experimental philosophy. Our results replicate and extend Roberts et al.’s study and support their hypothesis that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition. They also provide an empirical reason to doubt the reflection defense. (shrink)

Drawing on Aristotle’s notion of “ultimate responsibility,” Robert Kane argues that to be exercising a free will an agent must have taken some character forming decisions for which there were no sufficient conditions or decisive reasons. That is, an agent whose will is free not only had the ability to develop values and beliefs besides those that presently make up her motives, but could have exercised that ability without being irrational. An agent wills freely, on this view, by beingultimately (...) responsible for how she is currently disposed to act. Kane needs, then, to show how an agent could be responsible for decisions that her deliberations did not guarantee. He must also explain how a decision for which there is no decisive reason could yet be rational, assuming that the responsibility engendering decisions forming the basis of a free will would be rational. I shall argue here that Kane has achieved neither of these goals. (shrink)

Infertility is recognized as a major problem of modern society. Assisted Reproductive Technology is the one of many available treatment options to cure infertility. However, the efficiency of the ART treatment is still inadequate. Therefore, the procedure’s quality is constantly improving and there is a need to determine statistical predictors as well as contributing factors to the successful treatment. There is a concern over the application of adequate statistical analysis to clinical data: should classic statistical methods be used or would (...) it be more appropriate to apply advanced data mining technologies? By comparing two statistical models, Multivariable Logistic Regression analysis and Artificial Neural Network it has been demonstrated that Multivariable Logistic Regression analysis is more suitable for theoretical interest but the Artificial Neural Network method is more useful in clinical prediction. (shrink)

It is widely held by philosophers not only that there is a causal condition on perception but also that the causal condition is a conceptual truth about perception. One influential line of argument for this claim is based on intuitive responses to a style of thought experiment popularized by Grice. Given the significance of these thought experiments to the literature, it is important to see whether the folk in fact respond to these cases in the way that philosophers assume they (...) should. We test folk intuitions regarding the causal theory of perception by asking our participants to what extent they agree that they would ‘see’ an object in various Gricean scenarios. We find that the intuitions of the folk do not strongly support the causal condition; they at most strongly support a ‘no blocker’ condition. We argue that this is problematic for the claim that the causal condition is a conceptual truth. (shrink)

The authors identify and discuss the many complexities involved in the translation of scientific information in the social sciences into forms usable for solving problems of practice in education. As a means of appropriately handling these complexities and the issues that arise, they prescribe a series of stages to be followed from the advent of a practitioner's situational problem to the design of a response to it. They assert that unless the process of translation is conducted with the prescribed level (...) of understanding, appreciation, and rigor, the application of knowledge will be inaccurate. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that there is a causal condition on perception, and that this condition is a conceptual truth about perception. A highly influential argument for this claim is based on intuitive responses to Gricean style thought experiments. Do the folk share the intuitions of philosophers? Roberts et al. (2016) presented participants with two kinds of cases: Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a mirror and a pillar) and Non-Blocker cases (similar to Grice’s case involving a clock and brain (...) stimulation). They found that a substantial minority agreed that seeing occurs in the Non-Blocker cases, and that in the Blocker cases significantly less agreed that seeing occurs. They thus hypothesized that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition than with a causal condition. This paper continues this line of enquiry with two new experiments. The paper investigates the generality and robustness of Roberts et al.’s findings by expanding the sense modalities tested from only vision to audition and olfaction as well. The paper also uses Gricean style thought experiments as a case study for investigating the “reflection defense” against the negative project in experimental philosophy. Our results replicate and extend Roberts et al.’s study and support their hypothesis that folk intuitions better align with a no blocker condition. They also provide an empirical reason to doubt the reflection defense. (shrink)

Nicomachean Ethics/NE, Book III, Chapters 1-5, provides Aristotle’s account of “Voluntary Movement.” It, thus, draws the Passion-Action distinction, only posited earlier in Categories, while also serving as the linchpin of NE’ discussion of Virtue, in explicitly connecting it to Right Reason. My explication of this text renders its terminology consistent with the Law of Excluded Middle and rebuts two criticisms of the Eudaimonistic Axiology on which it is based. These results are shown to be entailments of Aristotle’s doctrine that Voluntary (...) is (a) Relative. That categorization is then used to help treat a problematic case of Deliberation beyond his purview. (shrink)

As global governance institutions proliferate and become more powerful, their legitimacy is subject to ever sharper scrutiny. Yet what legitimacy means in this context and how it is to be ascertained are often unclear. In a previous paper in this journal, we offered a general account of the legitimacy of such institutions and a set of standards for determining when they are legitimate. In this paper we focus on the legitimacy of the UN Security Council as an institution for making (...) decisions concerning the use of military force across state borders. The context for this topic has changed over the last decade as a result of the ongoing development of the responsibility to protect (RtoP) doctrine and extensive discussions about it in the United Nations. Yet the mostly widely accepted proposals for RtoP still require Security Council authorization for forceful intervention, and strictly limit the conditions under which such intervention may take place. (shrink)

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain given at the British Academy's 2009 Keynes Lecture in Economics. This text suggests that the Industrial Revolution was Britain's response to the global economy that emerged after 1500 and that Britain's success in world trade resulted in one of the most urbanised economies in Europe with unusually high wages and cheap energy prices. The text here also highlights the contribution of Britain in the invention of (...) the steam engine and the cotton spinning machines and in scientific discoveries relating to atmospheric pressure. (shrink)

As the above quote clearly highlights, it is the responsibility of researchers and research supervisors to be certain that their research staff and students assistants are very familiar with all of the ethical principles and current standards relevant to the research they are conducting. Indeed, they must take an active role in being certain that their research staff and students complete appropriate training in these ethical principles and standards, and how they apply them to the research context in which they (...) are working. This is especially important in areas in which there may be physical harm such as chronic pain research. During the past decade, there has been a great increase in research of chronic pain, with breakthroughs in better understanding its etiology, assessment, and treatment (1,2). Obviously, much of this research was conducted using humans and animals as subjects. As a consequence, there were a number of ethical issues that investigators have to be cognizant of when conducting their studies. In this chapter, we will discuss such ethical issues in three major areas: (i) laboratory research with human subjects; (ii) laboratory research with animals; and (iii) translating these laboratory research ndings to ‘‘real world’’ applications in the clinical treatment arena. (shrink)

Reading Charles Taylor's Hegel, one is quite struck by his view that Hegel's Logic offers us an ontology. To some degree this is an obvious observation in that the Logic certainly pretends to speak regarding “all that is”. Within the optic of Taylor's suggestion, it is possible to explore the primacy of the ontological claim for Hegel's work, the possibility of nihilism consequent upon its collapse, and an access to a post-Hegelian and post-nihilistic future for human thought and activity.

I demonstrate here that it is possible for an event to be identical with one of its proper parts, refuting the key premise in Lawrence Lombard's argument for the essentiality of an event's time. I also propose and defend an alternative to his criterion of event identity.

A 123 item survey of ethics perceptions of Farmers had 796 respondents. Of these, 517 (64.9%) felt that farm ethics had gotten worse. A discriminant analysis employed to offer insight into the extent and nature of group differences produced 22 independent variables along with an adequate increase in classification results above expectations due to chance. These variables reflect a division between the outside business and political world and the concerns of farmers. The responses suggest an appreciation by the respondents of (...) the interdependence of their business actions with their neighbors. The results are also suggestive of both an absolute and a relative ethics component. Further research on the relevance of communitarian ethics is suggested. (shrink)

Drawing on Aristotle’s notion of “ultimate responsibility,” Robert Kane argues that to be exercising a free will an agent must have taken some character forming decisions for which there were no sufficient conditions or decisive reasons. That is, an agent whose will is free not only had the ability to develop values and beliefs besides those that presently make up her motives, but could have exercised that ability without being irrational. An agent wills freely, on this view, by beingultimately (...) responsible for how she is currently disposed to act. Kane needs, then, to show how an agent could be responsible for decisions that her deliberations did not guarantee. He must also explain how a decision for which there is no decisive reason could yet be rational, assuming that the responsibility engendering decisions forming the basis of a free will would be rational. I shall argue here that Kane has achieved neither of these goals. (shrink)

In this paper, we approach the idea of group cognition from the perspective of the “extended mind” thesis, as a special case of the more general claim that systems larger than the individual human, but containing that human, are capable of cognition (Clark, 2008; Clark & Chalmers, 1998). Instead of deliberating about “the mark of the cognitive” (Adams & Aizawa, 2008), our discussion of group cognition is tied to particular cognitive capacities. We review recent studies of group problem-solving and group (...) memory which reveal that specific cognitive capacities that are commonly ascribed to individuals are also aptly ascribed at the level of groups. These case studies show how dense interactions among people within a group lead to both similarity-inducing and differentiating dynamics that affect the group's ability to solve problems. This supports our claim that groups have organization-dependent cognitive capacities that go beyond the simple aggregation of the cognitive capacities of individuals. Group cognition is thus an emergent phenomenon in the sense of Wimsatt (1986). We further argue that anybody who rejects our strategy for showing that cognitive properties can be instantiated at multiple levels in the organizational hierarchy on a priori grounds is a “demergentist,” and thus incurs the burden of proof for explaining why cognitive properties are “stuck” at a certain level of organizational structure. Finally, we show that our analysis of group cognition escapes the “coupling-constitution” charge that has been leveled against the extended mind thesis (Adams & Aizawa, 2008). (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Emest Sosa’s defense of Conceptual Relativism: the view that what exists is a function of human thought. My examination reveals that his defense entails an ontology that is indistinguishable from that of the altemative he labels less “sensible,” viz., Absolutism: the view that reality exists independently of our thinking. I conclude by defending Absolutism against Sosa’s objections.

The indirect argument (IA) for incompatibilism is based on the principle that an action to which there is no alternative is unfree, which we shall call ‘PA’. According to PA, to freely perform an action A, it must not be the case that one has ‘no choice’ but to perform A. The libertarian and hard determinist advocates of PA must deny that free will would exist in a deterministic world, since no agent in such a world would perform an action (...) to which there were alternatives: an action there being the necessary consequence of preceding events and the laws of nature, it would not be possible for a person to perform actions besides those he actually performs. Determinism is seen here as “indirectly” ruling out free will by making the satisfaction of a necessary condition of free agency impossible, the former requiring, according to the leading proponent of libertarianism, Robert Kane, the performance of free actions. To have a free will, on his view, is to have committed “self-forming” actions, that is, to have done things to which there were alternatives the doing of which led to the development of the desires, preferences, and beliefs that make up one’s character. -/- The range of phenomena obeying probabilistic laws has yet to be ascertained. Under certain assumptions, both STR and GTR entail an indeterministic mechanics. But, contrary what is often claimed, quanta do not behave indeterministicly: the wave function/probabilistic laws being necessary only insofar as we wish to macroscopicly describe their behavior. It is far less clear, however, that the macro-events involved in human decision making and behavior, such as the releasing of neurotransmitters and the contracting of muscles, occur indeterministically. The ontological status of these events-whether or not they are the necessary effects of prior occurrences-is, of course, what matters in the free will debate. For present purposes, however, this question will be put aside. Instead, I will concentrate on buttressing the existing case against PA, aiming to show that even if deterministic laws hold at the level of macro-phenomena, free will remains a possibility. That is to say, I shall defend the thesis that so-called “Frankfurt cases” demonstrate that alternatives are not required to perform an action that is free in the sense of being something for which its agent is responsible. -/- My defense will be carried out in three stages. First, I must respond to those who maintain that a Frankfurt case is not a counterexample to PA because it is not an example of someone acting without alternatives. Here, I confront the question of how “robust” an alternative must bein order to provide an agent with a way of avoiding praise or blame for the action that she actually commits. Secondly, I must show that an agent may be praiseworthy or blameworthy despite lacking alternatives at the time at which she acts, i.e., an appropriate object of one of a Strawsonian “reactive attitude” sans what I shall call “local” alternatives. At this point, I must attend to David Widerker’s recent critique of the use of Frankfurt cases as counterexamples to PA. Finally, I set for myself what I take to be the most difficult task of a compatibilist: demonstrating that not even an “historical” alternative-the possibility of having chosen a different path in life than the one that one has actually taken-is needed to have a free will. In this connection, it will be incumbent upon me to explain why it would be fair to hold someone accountable for behavior issuing from a self she did not create, dispositions originating from natural conditions she did not establish. That is to say, in denying that a free will entails the ability to transcend oneself, I shall be faced with what Kane calls the “ultimacy” problem: how to explain away the incompatibilist’s intuition that it is senseless to adopt a reactive attitude towards someone incapable of self-transcendence, even if such a reaction is itself unavoidable. By showing that the desire for self-transcendence is itself irrational, I intend to solve this problem. I will, thus, be left defending a version of compatibilism according to which a free will is to be understood as a healthy faculty-the will-being exercised in an environment conducive to self-realization, which is its purpose. (shrink)

Allen Buchanan and Robert O. Keohane reply to Steven Lee's critique of their previous essay on the preventive use of military force.

Susan Wolf’s compatibilism is unique for being ‘asymmetrical.' While holding that blameworthiness entails being able to avoid acting wrongly, she maintains that our freedom consists in single-mindedly pursuing Truth and Goodness. Comparing and contrasting her position to Saint Anselm’s seminal, libertarian approach to the same subject elicits serious questions, highlighting its drawbacks. How could freedom entail the inability to do certain things? In what sense are reasons causes? What sense can be made of a double standard for assignments of responsibility? (...) Is not self-control inconsistent with being caused to act by things independent of oneself? Does not virtue require struggling against falsehoods and evils by which one could be overcome? Wolf’s compatibilism must be rejected, I shall argue, in light of Anselm’s intuitively satisfying response to these concerns: we should prefer a philosophy that entails more of what we want from freedom without begging unanswerable questions of its own. (shrink)