In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Robert C. Solomon IN DEFENSE OF SENTIMENTALITY "A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it." —Oscar Wilde, De Profundis. 66TA That's Wrong with Sentimentality?"1 That tide of Mark JefV V ferson's 1983 Mindessay already indicates a great deal notonly about the gist of his article but about a century-old prejudice that has been devastating to ethics and literature (...) alike. According to that prejudice, it goes without saying that there is something wrong with it, even if it is difficult to put one's finger on it. To be called "sentimental" is to be ridiculed, or dismissed. Sentimentality is a weakness, it suggests hypocrisy. Or, perhaps it is the fact that sentimental people are so... so embarrassing. (How awkward it is talking or sitting next to someone weeping or gushing, when one is dry-eyed and somber.) Or, perhaps it is the well-confirmed fact that sentimentalists have such poor taste, and sentimental literature is, above all, literature that is cheap, superficial, and manipulative—in other words, verbal kitsch. Such mawkish literature jerks tears from otherwise sensible readers, and sentimentalists are those who actually enjoy that humiliating experience. Perhaps that is why Oscar Wilde thought that sentimentalists were really cynics ("Sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism").2 Or, perhaps what bothers us is what bothered Michael Tanner, that sentimental people indulge themselves in their feelings instead of doing what should be done.3 It is often said that the problem is that sentimentality and sentimental literature alike give us a false view of the world, distort our thinking and substitute a "saccharine" portrait of the world in place ofwhat we all know to be the horrible realities. Moreover, as Jefferson more than merely suggests, the "simple-minded sympathies " ofsentimentality might actually promote fascism and racism. Mary Midgley similarly suggests that sentimentality leads to brutality.4 But Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 304-323 Robert C. Solomon305 even where sentimentality is a harmless diversion—a Daphne du Maurier novel on a sad Saturday afternoon—it seems to be all but agreed that sentimentality is no virtue even ifit is not, like cruelty and hypocrisy, intrinsically vicious. Something is wrong with sentimentality; the only question is, what is it that is wrong? In this essay, I will argue that there is nothing wrong with sentimentality. Of course, like any quasi-ethical category, it admits of unwarranted excesses and hypocritical abuses, and is prone to various pathological distortions. But the prejudice against sentimentality, I want to argue, is ill-founded and in fact is an extension ofthat all-too-familiar contempt for the passions in Western literature and philosophy. Our disdain for sentimentality is the rationalist's discomfort with any display of emotion, warranted as well as unwarranted, appropriate as well as inappropriate. It is as ifthe very word, "sentimentality," has been loaded with the connotations of "too much"—too much feeling and too litde common sense and rationality, as if these were opposed instead of mutually supportive. It is as if sentimentality and its sentiments are never warranted and always inappropriate. The word has come to be used as the name of a deficiency or a weakness if not, as some critics have written, a malaise. But I take sentimentality to be nothing more nor less than the "appeal to tender feelings," and though one can manipulate and abuse such feelings (including one's own), and though they can on occasion be misdirected or excessive, there is nothing wrong with them as such and hence nothing (in that respect) wrong with literature that provokes us, that "moves" us, to abstract affection or weeping. Sentimentality implies no deficiency in one's rational faculties and does not imply any inappropriateness, unwillingness, or lack of readiness to act. Sentimentality does not involve any distortion of the world and it does not impede but rather prepares and motivates us to react in "the real world." It is not an escape from reality or responsibility, but, quite to the contrary, provides the precondition for ethical engagement rather than an obstacle to it. Historically, I want to trace the fate of sentimentality to... (shrink)

The opening chapter of Genesis makes a lofty claim about the human condition: that humans are created in the image of God. But why can humans image God? This article examines four different interpretations of humans as interpretive animals. Following Martin Heidegger's account of Dasein, I argue that humans are interpretive animals, and as such, are suitable creatures to bear God's image. Humans as interpretive animals function as the image of God, not because of divine fiat; instead, humans in their (...) capacities are open to being the image. My argument is not that the image of God is identifiable as particular human features. Instead, it is the fact that humans have specific capacities that make them interpretive animals (e.g., radical openness, thrownness, malleability) and that these traits are constitutive for what it means to be human. Alongside Heidegger, I draw on the works of Charles Taylor, Claudia Welz, and Kathryn Tanner. (shrink)

Slavoj Žižek writes: "Today philosophy is approaching a double end. Physics and brain sciences offer answers to the big metaphysical questions (is the universe infinite? Do we have a free will?), while what remained of philosophy is mostly getting lost in historicist relativism, reducing truth to a discursive “truth-effect.” But more and more people are tired of this game: the need for a new beginning, for authentic metaphysics, is felt everywhere. And Allinson does something that we all secretly knew it (...) has to be done, but nobody dared to actually do it so directly: he convincingly argues for the return to a philosophy that shamelessly addresses big questions. A great sigh of relief will be felt by the readers of Awakening Philosophy: The Loss of Truth: we are back home. If there is justice in our intellectual life, the book will become daily bread for thinking beings." -/- Brian Klug, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, the University of Oxford writes: "Awakening Philosophy is as original as it is ambitious. Allinson holds up a mirror to academic philosophy and shows how it has become fragmented into an eclectic set of specialisms. He seeks to get philosophy to question itself, thus reviving the spirit of Socratic enquiry: self-examination. In the process, he sets out to recover “the Great Questions” that have exercised philosophers from Plato to such figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Husserl. A timely and ground-breaking book." -/- Michael Slote, UST Professor of Ethics, Department of Philosophy, University of Miami, Member, Royal Irish Academy, former Tanner Lecturer, Stanford University, writes: "An elegant and timely appeal for philosophers and the educated public to make use of philosophy's historic roots for purposes of present-day enlightenment." In this original book, Robert Elliott Allinson asserts that philosophers have been lulled into a dogmatic sleep by Immanuel Kant, the slayer of metaphysics, who has convinced them (and the rest of humanity) that we can never know Reality. Allinson awakens global philosophers from their sceptical slumbers by diagnosing the reason why they have abdicated their traditional calling as leaders of inquiry into truth and wisdom. (shrink)

Originally published in 1932, this book presents the substance of the Tanner Lectures for 1931–2, which were delivered by the British philosopher and theologian F. R. Tennant at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the philosophy of science and the relationships between academic disciplines.

Originally published in 1932, this book presents the substance of the Tanner Lectures for 1931–2, which were delivered by the British philosopher and theologian F. R. Tennant at Cambridge University. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the philosophy of science and the relationships between academic disciplines.

Volume 39 of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values includes lectures initially scheduled during the academic year 2019-2020. Owing to the global coronavirus pandemic, some were delivered at a later date. The Tanner Lectures are published in an annual volume. In addition to permanent lectures at nine universities, the Tanner Lectures on Human Values funds special one-time lectures at selected higher educational institutions in the United States and around the world.

Volume 39 of the Tanner Lectures on Human Values includes lectures initially scheduled during the academic year 2019-2020. Owing to the global coronavirus pandemic, some were delivered at a later date. The Tanner Lectures are published in an annual volume. In addition to permanent lectures at nine universities, the Tanner Lectures on Human Values funds special one-time lectures at selected higher educational institutions in the United States and around the world.

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is the annual publication of lectures given at Clare Hall, Cambridge University; Brasenose College, Oxford University; Harvard University; Yale University; the University of California; Stanford University; the University of Michigan; and the University of Utah as well as other locations. Established to reflect upon the scholarly and scientific learning relating to human values, the lectureships are international and intercultural, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, and ideological distinctions. This Volume X, first published in 1989, (...) includes: ALBERT O. HIRSCHMAN 'Two Hundred Years of Reactionary Rhetoric: The Case of the Perverse Effect'; ROBERT A. DAHL 'The Pseudodemocratization of the American Presidency'; JAVIER MUGUERZA 'The Alternative of Dissent'; WILLIAM THEODORE DE BARY 'The Trouble with Confucianism'; ANTHONY QUINTON 'The Varieties of Value'; BARRY STROUD 'The Study of Human Nature and the Subjectivity of Value'. (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, founded July 1, 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, was established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner. Lectureships are awarded to outstanding scholars or leaders in broadly defined fields of human values and transcend ethnic, national, religious, or ideological distinctions. Volume 33 features lectures given during the academic year 2012-2013 at Stanford University; the University of Michigan; the University of Oxford; the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University; the (...) University of Utah; and the U.S. Ambassador’s Palace, Paris, France._ William G. Bowen_, “Costs and Productivity in Higher Education” and “Prospects for an Online Fix: Can We Harness Technology in the Service of Our Aspirations?”_ Craig Calhoun_, “The Problematic Public: Revisiting Dewey, Arendt, and Habermas”_ Michael Ignatieff_, “Representation and Responsibility: Ethics and Public Office”_ F. M. Kamm_,_ “_Who Turned the Trolley?” and _“_How Was the Trolley Turned?”_ Claude Lanzmann, “_Resurrection”_ Robert Post, “_Representative Democracy: The Constitutional Theory of Campaign Finance Reform” and _“_Campaign Finance Reform and the First Amendment”_ Michael J. Sandal_, “The Moral Economy of Speculation: Gambling, Finance, and the Common Good”. (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, founded July 1, 1978, at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, was established by the American scholar, industrialist, and philanthropist Obert Clark Tanner. Lectureships are awarded to outstanding scholars or leaders in broadly defined fields of human values and transcend ethnic, national, religious, or ideological distinctions. Volume 31 features lectures given during the academic year 2010–2011 at Yale University, The University of Utah, The University of Michigan, Stanford University, Princeton University, and Harvard University. _Contributors: (...) __Rebecca Goldstein, “The Ancient Quarrel: Philosophy and Literature” _ Rebecca Goldstein is a research associate in the Department of Psychology, Harvard University, and an award-winning novelist. _Spike Lee, “America Through My Lens: The Evolving Nature of Race and Class in the Films of Spike Lee” _ Spike Lee, a writer-director, actor, producer, author, and educator who has revolutionized the role of black talent in cinema, is widely regarded as today’s premiere African-American filmmaker. _Susan Neiman, “Victims and Heroes”_ Susan Neiman is the director of the Einstein Forum, an international interdisciplinary think tank in Berlin, and is the author of three books. _Elinor Ostrom, “Frameworks” and “Analyzing 100-Year-Old Irrigation Puzzles”_ Elinor Ostrom is Distinguished Professor, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, and senior research director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington. _Robert Putnam, “American Grace: Religious Americans Are Nicer and Happier. Why?”_ and “American Grace: Americans Are Religiously Devout and Religiously Divided, yet Religiously Tolerant. Why?” Robert Putnam is Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and has written more than a dozen books. _James Scott, “The Late Neolithic Multispecies Resettlement Camp” and “The Long Golden Age of Barbarians, a.k.a. Non-State Peoples”_ James Scott is the Sterling professor of Political Science and professor of Anthropology and director of the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University. _Martin Seligman, “Flourish: Positive Psychology and Positive Interventions”_ Martin Seligman is Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Positive Psychology Center. He is the author of twenty-one books and more than 250 articles. _Susan Smith, “Moral Maze: Dealings in Debt” and “Ethical Investment?: Attending to Assets”_ Susan Smith, Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, researches the interdisciplinary world of housing studies. She has published more than 100 scholarly articles. (shrink)

Counters the long-standing, solemn interpretation of Plato’s dialogues with one centered on the philosophical and pedagogical significance of Socrates as a comic figure. Plato was described as a boor and it was said that he never laughed out loud. Yet his dialogues abound with puns, jokes, and humor. Sonja Madeleine Tanner argues that in Plato’s dialogues Socrates plays a comical hero who draws heavily from the tradition of comedy in ancient Greece, but also reforms laughter to be applicable to (...) all persons and truly shaming to none. Socrates introduces a form of self-reflective laughter that encourages, rather than stifles, philosophical inquiry. Laughter in the dialogues—both explicit and implied—suggests a view of human nature as incongruous with ourselves, simultaneously falling short of, and superseding, our own capacities. What emerges is a picture of human nature that bears a striking resemblance to Socrates’ own, laughable depiction, one inspired by Dionysus, but one that remains ultimately intractable. The book analyzes specific instances of laughter and the comical from the Apology, Laches, Charmides, Cratylus, Euthydemus, and the Symposium to support this, and to further elucidate the philosophical consequences of recognizing Plato’s laughter. Sonja Madeleine Tanner is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and the author of In Praise of Plato’s Poetic Imagination. (shrink)

In Pascal Boyer’s book Religion Explained inference systems are made to do a lot of work in his attempts to explain cognition in religion. These inference systems are systems in the brain that produces inferences when they are activated by things we perceive in our environment. According to Boyer they perceive things, produce explanations, and perform calculations. However, if Wittgenstein’s observation, that “only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it (...) has sensations; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious” is correct then it seems that Boyer’s talk of inference systems perceiving and inferring is confused. (shrink)

Over a career spanning American history from the 1880s to the 1950s, John Dewey sought not only to forge a persuasive argument for his conviction that "democracy is freedom" but also to realize his democratic ideals through political activism. Widely considered modern America's most important philosopher, Dewey made his views known both through his writings and through such controversial episodes as his leadership of educational reform at the turn of the century; his support of American intervention in World War I (...) and his leading role in the Outlawry of War movement after the war; and his participation in both radical and anti-communist politics in the 1930s and 40s. Robert B. Westbrook reconstructs the evolution of Dewey's thought and practice in this masterful intellectual biography, combining readings of his major works with an engaging account of key chapters in his activism. Westbrook pays particular attention to the impact upon Dewey of conversations and debates with contemporaries from William James and Reinhold Niebuhr to Jane Addams and Leon Trotsky. Countering prevailing interpretations of Dewey's contribution to the ideology of American liberalism, he discovers a more unorthodox Dewey—a deviant within the liberal community who was steadily radicalized by his profound faith in participatory democracy. Anyone concerned with the nature of democracy and the future of liberalism in America—including educators, moral and social philosophers, social scientists, political theorists, and intellectual and cultural historians—will find John Dewey and American Democracy indispensable reading. (shrink)

Machine‐learning algorithms have the potential to revolutionise diagnostic and prognostic tasks in health care, yet algorithmic performance levels can be materially worse for subgroups that have been underrepresented in algorithmic training data. Given this epistemic deficit, the inclusion of underrepresented groups in algorithmic processes can result in harm. Yet delaying the deployment of algorithmic systems until more equitable results can be achieved would avoidably and foreseeably lead to a significant number of unnecessary deaths in well‐represented populations. Faced with this dilemma (...) between equity and utility, we draw on two case studies involving breast cancer and melanoma to argue for the selective deployment of diagnostic and prognostic tools for some well‐represented groups, even if this results in the temporary exclusion of underrepresented patients from algorithmic approaches. We argue that this approach is justifiable when the inclusion of underrepresented patients would cause them to be harmed. While the context of historic injustice poses a considerable challenge for the ethical acceptability of selective algorithmic deployment strategies, we argue that, at least for the case studies addressed in this article, the issue of historic injustice is better addressed through nonalgorithmic measures, including being transparent with patients about the nature of the current epistemic deficits, providing additional services to algorithmically excluded populations, and through urgent commitments to gather additional algorithmic training data from excluded populations, paving the way for universal algorithmic deployment that is accurate for all patient groups. These commitments should be supported by regulation and, where necessary, government funding to ensure that any delays for excluded groups are kept to the minimum. We offer an ethical algorithm for algorithms—showing when to ethically delay, expedite, or selectively deploy algorithmic systems in healthcare settings. (shrink)

Author Robert Wright shows how Buddhist meditative practice can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and deepen your appreciation of beauty and other people." -- Adapted from book jacket.

Referred to as “a foundational concept” of bioethics, personhood has long figured prominently in discussions of entities’ moral status and attendant rights and duties (Farah and Heberlein 2007, 39)...

If we are going to treat other species so very differently from our own — killing, eating and experimenting on pigs and sheep, for example, but never human beings — then it seems we need to come up with some morally relevant difference between us and them that justifies this difference in treatment. Otherwise it appears we are guilty of bigotry (in just the same way that someone who discriminates on the basis of race or sex is guilty of bigotry). (...) But what is this morally relevant difference? Julia Tanner's article examines, and rejects, some of the most popular answers to this question. -/- . (shrink)

This innovative volume presents an insightful philosophical portrait of the life and work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Focuses on the concept of the sublime as it clarifies Schopenhauer’s aesthetic theory, moral theory and asceticism Explores the substantial relationships between Schopenhauer’s philosophy and Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity Defends Schopenhauer’s position that absolute truth can be known and described as a blindly striving, all-permeating, universal “Will” Examines the influence of Asian philosophy on Schopenhauer Describes the relationships between Schopenhauer’s thought and that of Hegel, (...) Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. (shrink)

A set of qubit channels has a classical representation when it is isomorphic to the convex closure of a group of classical channels. From Crowder and Martin (Proceedings of Quantum Physics and Logic, Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2009), we know that up to isomorphism there are five such sets, each corresponding to either a subgroup of the alternating group on four letters, or a subgroup of the symmetric group on three letters. In this paper, we show that the (...) classical representation of a qubit channel also carries its information theoretic data—in particular, both the Holevo capacity and the scope of a unital qubit channel can be completely calculated from a systematically determined classical channel. (shrink)

This book is of vital interest to anyone who yearns to know how science, theology, ethics, art, and politics do really afford objective truths. Not only that, but how these truths in seemingly clashing areas are interrelated by common sense and rooted in our incontrovertible consciousness of Being itself. Being itself, as the basis for truth, is defended against truth-denying modern philosophers who, having headed in the wrong direction with tragic costs of murderous ideologies, have completely misunderstood the simple origin (...) of truth in the realist tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, Étienne Gilson, and others. Their profoundness is not bamboozled by the covert and corrupting sophism of today’s teachings. Anyone interested in surmounting these teachings that include political correctness and a false divide of fact from value, which paralyze the very modern ethics that helped to create them, should read this book. The book reveals how ethics, art, and politics can be as true as the sciences that inform them. (shrink)

Ecology, with its emphasis on coupled processes and massive heterogeneity, is not amenable to complete mechanical reduction, which is frustrated for reasons of history, dimensionality, logic, insufficiency, and contingency. Physical laws are not violated, but can only constrain, not predict. Outcomes are predicated instead by autocatalytic configurations, which emerge as stable temporal series of incorporated contingencies. Ecosystem organization arises out of agonism between autocatalytic selection and entropic dissolution. A degree of disorganization, inefficiency, and functional redundancy must be retained by all (...) living systems to ensure flexibility in the face of novel disturbances. That physical and biological dynamics exhibit significant incongruencies argues for the formulation of alternative metaphysical assumptions, referred to here as “Process Ecology”. (shrink)

Die Meisterwerke der Moralistik haben Millionen von Menschen als philosophische Lebensbegleiter gedient. Doch worum geht es in der Moralistik eigentlich? 0Die Moralistik befasst sich mit der Natur des Menschen und mit Möglichkeiten kluger, individueller Selbstbehauptung. Sie führt die antiken Ansätze einer philosophischen Klugheitslehre fort und besetzt damit einen in der neuzeitlichen Ethik vernachlässigten Teil der praktischen Philosophie. Ihre Meisterwerke vermitteln uns Menschenkenntnis und soziale Orientierung und stehen uns auf dem Weg eines gelingenden Lebens beratend zur Seite. In ihnen liegt der (...) Ursprung der modernen Philosophie der Lebenskunst. Das Buch stellt sowohl die Entwicklung der Moralistik als auch ihr philosophisches Anliegen anschaulich und gut lesbar dar. (shrink)

Robert Wolfe writes about the nature of the ajata teachings, or the nature of emptiness and absolute reality.

Robert Zafft presents the too-often abstract language of business ethics in straight-forward language, laying out two themes commonly ignored: in the real world, it is often easy to lay out an ethical path but often very difficult to implement and encourage adherence to that path, and reputation is the single most important asset in business.

"Among the foremost Catholic philosophers of his generation. He has utilized the fullness of the Catholic intellectual tradition to brilliantly take the measure of modern philosophical thought... This volume is an expression of Robert Wood's singular philosophical outlook." -Jude Dougherty, dean emeritus, school of philosophy, The Catholic University of America.

This paper articulates and responds to a challenge to contemporary compatibilist views of free will. Despite the popularity and appeal of compatibilist theories, many are left with lingering doubts about compatibilism. This paper explains this doubt in terms of the absurdity challenge: because a compatibilist accepts that they do not have causal access to all the actual sufficient causal sources of their own agency, the compatibilist can find their own agency absurd. By taking a cue from political philosophy, this paper (...) argues that a non-ideal construction of the problem of free will allows compatibilists to overcome this existential-metaphysical challenge, and by doing so, perhaps adopt a metaphysically progressive picture of human agency. (shrink)

Rawls offers three arguments for the priority of liberty in Theory, two of which share a common error: the belief that once we have shown the instrumental value of the basic liberties for some essential purpose (e.g., securing self-respect), we have automatically shown the reason for their lexical priority. The third argument, however, does not share this error and can be reconstructed along Kantian lines: beginning with the Kantian conception of autonomy endorsed by Rawls in section 40 of Theory, we (...) can explain our highest-order interest in rationality, justify the lexical priority of all basic liberties, and reinterpret Rawls’ threshold condition for the application of the priority of liberty. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this Kantian reconstruction will not work within the radically different framework of Political Liberalism. (shrink)

Beyond Reason and Tolerance argues that to prepare students to engage political, ethnic, and religious differences, higher education must adopt a developmental model for a formative and liberal undergraduate education as a process of growth involving empathy as well as reasoning, values as well as knowledge, and identity as well as competencies.

Agriculture is facing unprecedented scrutiny for its social and environmental impacts. Many of the key choices it must make are fundamentally about ethics. Key issues in agricultural ethics explores key ethical debates surrounding agriculture and agri-food supply chains.These include issues such as animal welfare, use of labour, the effects of new technologies and the overall impact of agriculture on the environment. It considers the ways these ethical dilemmas may be better understood and potentially resolved. Edited by a leading researcher in (...) the field, Key issues in agricultural ethics will be a standard reference for researchers in agriculture and environmental science, government and other private sector agencies responsible for monitoring good agricultural practice, as well as researchers involved in the social sciences with a focus on ethics. (shrink)

This paper attempts to demonstrate Max Scheler’s anticipation of and continued relevance to a burgeoning trend of essence-based accounts of modality, chief among them being Kit Fine’s landmark 1994 “Essence and Modality.” I argue that Scheler’s account of the material a priori not only anticipates the picture of essence-based modality suggested by Fine, but moreover offers resources with the potential to resolve key challenges for the Finean program. In particular, Fine’s account runs into problems in explaining how formal logical necessities (...) are to be grounded in essences, challenges that put pressure on the essentialist to adopt a non-propositional account of the nature of logical principles. I argue that one such account can be found in Scheler’s notion of the material a priori, according to which all necessary propositional truth is grounded in a realm of experientially given yet a priori "phenomenological facts." After showing the general rapprochement between Scheler’s and Fine’s accounts of regional modality, I then turn to address Scheler’s attempt to ground formal logical principles in essences. On Scheler’s picture, propositions expressing formal logical truths are true in virtue of the domain of essences in two senses: In terms of what Scheler calls objective necessity, they are true insofar as they coincide with the essential facts and interconnections shared by all possible regions of being; In terms of what he calls subjective necessity, they are true in virtue of these same essential facts and interconnections insofar as they have become “functionalized” into law-like patterns of cognition. (shrink)