The prevention of sexual violence is a major goal of sexual health. In cases of accused sexual offenders, the assessment of diminished criminal responsibility of the accused is one of the most important procedures undertaken by experts in the German legal system. This assessment follows a two-stage method assessing first the severity of a paraphilic disorder and then second criteria for or against diminished capacity. The present study examines the predictive validity of two different sets of criteria for the assessment (...) of criminal responsibility in the context of paraphilic disorders combined with sexual offending. Two exemplary case vignettes of two suspected sexual offenders were developed to assess the criteria. For each participant, one of the two exemplary case vignettes was randomly presented. The presentation of the two different sets of criteria was also randomized, so that each participant was assigned only one of the two criteria sets to rate one of the presented cases. N = 349 participants from different professional backgrounds completed their assessments and were included in the data analysis. The data were evaluated using logistic regression. Results show that the more recently published criteria set predicts both the severity of the disorder as well as the diminished capacity twice as good as the older criteria set of Boetticher et al. currently used regularly for forensic court reports. In preliminary conclusion, the new criteria of Briken and Müller form an empirically based assessment of criminal responsibility. However, the proposed criteria cannot replace an extensive exploration of the accused person and a careful file analysis. Validity and reliability of the results are also limited due to the methodical choice of a vignette study. (shrink)

According to the Spatial Quantity Association of Response Codes (SQUARC), people hold a mental association between horizontal position and quantity (lower quantities left, higher quantities right). While a large body of research has explored this effect for response speed and judgment accuracy, the affective downstream consequences of the SQUARC remain unexplored. Aiming to address this gap, the present two experiments (pre-registered, total N = 521) investigated whether stimulus arrangements that are compatible with the SQUARC for luminance are affectively preferred to (...) stimulus arrangements that are incompatible. SQUARC-compatible square arrangements (dark-left, bright-right) were preferred over SQUARC-incompatible square arrangements (dark-right, bright-left). The preference for SQUARC compatibility was not moderated by the horizontal orientation of the response scale. Our results confirm the direction of the spatial-luminance association and provide initial support that the cognitive processing of SQUARC compatibility is hedonically marked and appears sufficient to impact affective evaluations. (shrink)

On some accounts, prostitution is just another form of casual sex and as such not particularly harmful in itself, if regulated properly. I claim that, although casual sex in general is not inher-ently harmful, prostitution in fact is. To show this, I defend an account of sex as joint action characteristically aimed at sexual enjoyment, here understood as a tangible experience of com-munity among partners, and argue that prostitution fails to achieve this good by incentivizing partners to mistreat each other. (...) To substantiate this claim, I explore ways in which prostitution fails on the virtues of temperance, respect, and sincerity. (shrink)

What is the role of intimacy in sex? The two culturally dominant views on this matter both share the implicit assumption that sex is genuinely intimate only when connected to romance, and hence that sex and intimacy stand in a contingent relationship: it is possible to have good sex without it. Liberals embrace this possibility and affirm the value of casual sex, while conservatives attempt to safeguard intimacy by insisting on romantic exclusivity. I reject their shared assumption and argue for (...) a necessary connection between intimacy and sex, in that sexual activity as such aims at a specific form of intimacy, irrespective of whether it takes place in casual encounters or romantic relationships, and the difference between good and bad sex consists in whether this end is attained. To defend this view, I develop a general account of intimacy and apply it to isolate its specifically sexual form. (shrink)

Wittgenstein took literature extremely seriously and did not consider it of secondary importance. However, academic philosophy often shies away from the literary inflection of his philosophy. This is the first book to provide detailed discussions of his engagement with individual authors, such as Dostoevsky, Goethe, and Shakespeare. The book is essential for the cultural contextualizationfor Wittgenstein scholars and scholars of literature.

In serial verb constructions (SVCs), multiple independent lexical verbs are combined in a mono-clausal construction. SVCs express a range of grammatical meanings and are attested in numerous spoken languages all around the world. Yet, to date only few studies have investigated the existence and functions of SVCs in sign languages. For the most part, these studies – including a previous study on Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) – relied on elicited data. In this article, we offer a cross-modal typological (...) contribution to the study of SVCs by investigating the phenomenon based on naturalistic corpus data from NGT. A search of the Corpus NGT yielded 41 mono-clausal utterances in which one of a closed set of verbs – namely GO, GIVE, TAKE, and CALL – combines with another lexical verb. While the combinations we found are in important respects reminiscent of SVCs described for spoken languages, our data also confirm the previous finding that the fixed verb in the SVC serves to express agreement (by means of spatial modulation) when the other verb cannot do so. In addition, we identified some novel uses of the verbs GO and GIVE: (i) GO functioning as a future tense marker and (ii) GIVE functioning as a light verb. We will also discuss aspects of the grammaticalization of SVCs in NGT: from lexical verb to light verb to auxiliary, again offering some comparison to grammaticalization paths described for spoken languages. (shrink)

A revised and expanded English version was published as "Good Reasons and Natural Ends: Rosalind Hursthouse's Hermeneutical Naturalism", in M. Hähnel: Aristotelian Naturalism. A Research Companion, Springer 2020.

Die Arbeit gibt einen theoretischen Rahmen für das Programm «Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung». Im Fokus steht die Frage nach den Werten in der Natur. Es wird ein differenzierter Blick auf die Phänomenbereiche der Werte und der Natur genommen, um aus dieser Perspektive die beiden Konzepte der starken und schwachen Nachhaltigkeit zu reflektieren.

Over the past 12 years, I’ve had the good fortune of collaborating with others to create a project which challenges and complicates the dominant biopsychiatric model of mental illness. The Icarus Project, founded in 2002, not only critiqued the terms and practices central to the biopsychiatric model, it also inspired a new language and a new community for people struggling with mental health issues in the 21st century. The Icarus Project believes that humans are meaning makers, that meaning is created (...) through developing intrapersonal and interpersonal narratives, and that these narratives are important sites of creativity, struggle, and growth. The Icarus counter narrative and the community it fostered has been invaluable for people around the world dealing with psychic diversity—particularly for people alienated by mainstream approaches. But, despite the numbers of people who have been inspired by this approach, the historical background of the Icarus Project is hard to find. It exists primarily in oral history, newspaper articles, unpublished or self-published Icarus documents, and in internet discussion forums. As the co-founder of the Icarus Project, I use this article to make my understanding of that history and its key documents more widely available. (shrink)

This study investigates the distinct and joint effects of corporate social performance, firm size, and visibility on a company’s decision to disclose sustainability-related information through sustainability reports. It seeks to provide more nuanced explanations for why certain companies tend to extensively report on their sustainability performance. First, while prior studies have predominantly focused on environmental reporting, the current analysis considers comprehensive sustainability reports that include both environmental and social issues. Second, the article argues that the effects of two important antecedents (...) of legitimacy pressure—firm size and organizational visibility—should be analyzed separately rather than restricting the analysis on the effects of legitimacy pressure per se. Third, it argues that the hypothesized effects are nonlinear because the marginal costs and benefits of sustainability reporting vary with a company’s CSP level, its size, and its visibility in the public. Finally, although there is a strong link between CSP and sustainability reporting, the strength of this link depends on its size and visibility. The study of 280 companies in environmentally and socially sensitive industries provides considerable support for these hypotheses, including evidence that size and visibility independently affect sustainability reporting and that the shape of the CSP/sustainability reporting link is contingent upon firm size and visibility. (shrink)

So called “shapes of opposition”—like the classical square of opposition and its extensions—can be seen as graphical representations of the ways in which types of statements constrain each other in their possible truth values. As such, they can be used as a novel way of analysing the subject matter of disputes. While there have been great refinements and extensions of this logico-topological tool in the last years, the broad range of shapes of opposition are not widely known outside of a (...) circle of specialists. This ignorance may lead to the presumption that the classical square of opposition fits all disputes. A broader view, which takes expanded shapes of opposition into account, may come to a more nuanced appraisal of possible disputes. Once we take other shapes of opposition into account, some alleged disputes may turn out to be Scheindisputes. In order to do the wide range of linguistic expressions justice and to differentiate Scheindisputes from real ones, a broader view is advised. To illustrate this point, I discuss the notion of “introspective disputes”. These are commonly reconstructed as obeying the square, but are more aptly reconstructed with a more complex octagon. If we reconstruct these disputes based on Buridan’s octagon, it becomes obvious that “introspective disputes” are likely Scheindisputes. (shrink)

In der Diskussion um personale Identität nehmen die einflussreichen Arbeiten Derek Parfits eine Sonderstellung ein, insofern Parfit nicht bestrebt ist, eines der gängigen Identitätskriterien zu verteidigen, sondern vielmehr behauptet, dass unsere alltäglichen wie philosophischen Vorstellungen von personaler Identität unrettbar inkohärent sind und deshalb aufgegeben werden sollten. In seinem Beitrag beleuchtet Sascha Settegast die verschiedenen Argumente, die Parfit für diese provokante These vorbringt, und unternimmt insbesondere den Versuch einer systematischen Dekonstruktion der wichtigsten Gedankenexperimente Parfits, die zeigen soll, dass sich diese (...) Gedankenexperimente auf eine Weise auflösen lassen, die unsere alltäglichen Intuitionen über personale Identität intakt belässt. Settegast entwickelt dabei die Grundzüge einer Konzeption personaler Identität, die sich einerseits von den gängigen neo-lockeanischen und animalistischen Ansätzen abgrenzt und andererseits bewusst an den zeitgenössischen Neo-Aristotelismus in der Ethik anknüpft, wie er etwa bei Philippa Foot und Michael Thomp-son anzutreffen ist. Die diachrone numerische Identität menschlicher Personen gründet nach Settegasts Auffassung darin, dass der Verlauf ihres Lebens eine zeitliche Einheit aufweist, die dadurch bedingt ist, dass ihre Lebensführung die menschliche Lebensform auf eine individuell charakteristische Weise exemplifiziert. Insofern dies aber nur durch Kultivierung der Tugen-den zu erreichen ist, handelt es sich laut Settegast bei personaler Identität letztlich nicht um eine Tatsache, die einfach vorliegt oder nicht, sondern um eine Aufgabe, die uns als Menschen gegeben ist und wesentlich darin besteht, in bewusster Orientierung auf das gute Leben hin ein stabiles, sich zeitlich durchhaltendes Selbst allererst auszubilden. (shrink)

Considered by many to be Abraham Robinson's magnum opus, this book offers an explanation of the development and applications of non-standard analysis by the mathematician who founded the subject. Non-standard analysis grew out of Robinson's attempt to resolve the contradictions posed by infinitesimals within calculus. He introduced this new subject in a seminar at Princeton in 1960, and it remains as controversial today as it was then. This paperback reprint of the 1974 revised edition is indispensable reading for anyone interested (...) in non-standard analysis. It treats in rich detail many areas of application, including topology, functions of a real variable, functions of a complex variable, and normed linear spaces, together with problems of boundary layer flow of viscous fluids and rederivations of Saint-Venant's hypothesis concerning the distribution of stresses in an elastic body. (shrink)

A main goal of the neuroscience of consciousness is: find the neural correlate to conscious experiences (NCC). When have we achieved this goal? The answer depends on our operationalization of “NCC.” Chalmers (2000) shaped the widely accepted operationalization according to which an NCC is a neural system with a state which is minimally sufficient (but not necessary) for an experience. A deeper look at this operationalization reveals why it might be unsatisfactory: (i) it is not an operationalization of a correlate (...) for occurring experiences, but of the capacity to experience; (ii) it is unhelpful for certain cases which are used to motivate a search for neural correlates of consciousness; (iii) it does not mirror the usage of “NCC” by scientists who seek for unique correlates; (iv) it hardly allows for a form of comparative testing of hypotheses, namely experimenta crucis. Because of these problems (i–iv), we ought to amend or improve on Chalmers's operationalization. Here, I present an alternative which avoids these problems. This “NCC2.0” also retains some benefits of Chalmers's operationalization, namely being compatible with contributions from extended, embedded, enacted, or embodied accounts (4E-accounts) and allowing for the possibility of non-biological or artificial experiencers. (shrink)

The violation of Bell inequalities by quantum physical experiments disproves all relativistic micro causal, classically real models, short Local Realistic Models (LRM). Non-locality, the infamous “spooky interaction at a distance” (A. Einstein), is already sufficiently ‘unreal’ to motivate modifying the “realistic” in “local realistic”. This has led to many worlds and finally many minds interpretations. We introduce a simple many world model that resolves the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox. The model starts out as a classical LRM, thus clarifying that the (...) many worlds concept alone does not imply quantum physics. Some of the desired ‘non-locality’, e.g. anti-correlation at equal measurement angles, is already present, but Bell’s inequality can of course not be violated. A single and natural step turns this LRM into a quantum model predicting the correct probabilities. Intriguingly, the crucial step does obviously not modify locality but instead reality: What before could have still been a direct realism turns into modal realism. This supports the trend away from the focus on non-locality in quantum mechanics towards a mature structural realism that preserves micro causality. (shrink)

How to model non-egoic experiences – mental events with phenomenal aspects that lack a felt self – has become an interesting research question. The main source of evidence for the existence of such non-egoic experiences are self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences. In these, a person says about herself that she underwent an episode where she was conscious but lacked a feeling of self. Some interpret these as accurate reports, but this is questionable. Thomas Metzinger, Rocco Gennaro, and Charles Foster have hinted (...) at the self-defeating nature of such statements if we take them to be genuine reports: Apparently, the reporter explicitly denies her existence during the selfless experience, but implicitly affirms her existence as a witness to that selfless experience in order to give a first-person report about it. So the content of such a report conflicts with the pragmatics of reporting. If all self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences are self-defeating in this way, then they cannot count as evidence for the existence of non-egoic experiences. Here, I map out why such strong conclusions do not directly follow: What look like self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences may occur for a number of reasons. Only some explanations for such utterances rely on a change in consciousness. Of those that do rely on a change in consciousness, only one is incoherent. But its alternatives do not lead to contradictions. I argue that the most likely change in phenomenality that leads to self-ascriptions of non-egoic experiences is not one where a felt self disappears, but where it expands. (shrink)

In intuitions concerning semantic coherence participants are able to discriminate above chance whether a word triad has a common remote associate or not . These intuitions are driven by increased fluency in processing coherent triads compared to incoherent triads, which in turn triggers a brief and short positive affect. The present work investigates which of these internal cues, fluency or positive affect, is the actual cue underlying coherence intuitions. In Experiment 1, participants liked coherent word triads more than incoherent triads, (...) but did not rate them as being more fluent in processing. In Experiment 2, participants could intuitively detect coherence when they misattributed fluency to an external source, but lost this intuitive ability when they misattributed affect. It is concluded that the coherence-induced fluency by itself is not consciously experienced and not used in the coherence intuitions, but the fluency-triggered affective consequences. (shrink)

The present paper aims to contribute to the substantivalism versus relationalism debate and to defend general relativity (GR) against pseudoscientific attacks in a novel, especially inclusive way. This work was initially motivated by the desire to establish the incompatibility of any ether theories with accelerated cosmic expansion and inflation (motto: where would a hypothetical medium supposedly come from so fast?). The failure of this program is of interest for emergent GR concepts in high energy particle physics. However, it becomes increasingly (...) important to guard scientific results against their misrepresentation by fundamentally anti-scientific agendas. We therefore argue that although it is not known whether the perceived space-time is fundamental (rather than a condensed state or a particular membrane), in a fundamental theory, space-time must be abstract relational: fundamental space-time is the consistent spatial-temporal arrangement of events. To pursue its own goals, this work should be accessible to a wide audience: physicists, philosophers of science, those being tempted by anti-relativity theories, but also those who vigorously defend some orthodox relativity that is not actually supported by GR. It must thus be extensive in order to satisfy the different parties’ desire to have included and understood their respective positions. (shrink)

This review presents a systematic reading of Peter Sloterdijk’s Spheres trilogy, as part of a larger project to develop a techno-social ontology of place/s. Arguing against universalising theories of time and space, including Sloterdijk’s own conception of Spheres as ‘Being and Space’, this essay reads the trilogy through a ‘platial’ framework. While commenting on some of the shortcomings of the official English translations, the three volumes are being worked through methodically – Bubbles (micro spherology), Globes (macro spherology) and Foams (plural (...) spherology) – by placing particular emphasis on the third book, where Sloterdijk’s logic of spheres converges. The essay concludes by pointing out the limitation of Spheres as (philosophical) anthropology. (shrink)

A central objection to McDowell’s conceptualism about empirical content concerns the fine-grained phenomenology of experience, which supposedly entails that the actual content of experience cannot be matched in its particularity by our concepts. While McDowell himself has answered this objection in recourse to the possibility of demonstrative concepts, his reply has engendered a plethora of further objections and is widely considered inadequate. I believe that McDowell’s critics underestimate the true force of his reply because they tend to read unrecognized empiricist (...) presuppositions into his account of experience. To show this, I introduce a new hylomorphic reading of McDowell’s account of experience and argue that the objections to his reply all rest on a specific empiricist assumption, which is untenable because it conflates the form of experience with its content. Consequently, conceptualism so understood can resist all of these objections, as I attempt to show by systematizing and answering them. (shrink)

Chris Letheby argues in Philosophy of Psychedelics that psychedelics and knowledge are compatible. Psychedelics may cause new mental states, some of which can be states of knowledge. But the influence of psychedelics is largely psychological, and not all psychological processes are epistemic. So I want to build on the distinction between processes of discovery and processes of justification to criticise some aspects of Letheby’s epistemology of psychedelics. Unarguably, psychedelics can elicit processes of discovery. Yet, I hold, they can hardly contribute (...) either to the epistemic success of a mental state or to processes of justification. As these are central for a mental state to be a state of knowledge and are largely uninfluenced by psychedelics, the contributions of psychedelics to knowledge are rather indirect than direct: The heavy epistemic lifting—what turns a mental state into a state of knowledge—is, in its epistemic aspects, independent of any influence of psychedelics on our psyche. Positively, while the mechanisms that Letheby points to need not be associated with knowledge, they do provide crucial epistemic benefits if they are associated with understanding. Reading them as facilitating understanding covers also those cases where truth or justification is missing and thereby provides a broader picture of the epistemic contributions of psychedelics. (shrink)

Ground Representationism is the position that for each phenomenal feature there is a representational feature that accounts for it. Against this thesis, Ned Block (The Puzzle of Phenomenal Precision, 2015) has provided an intricate argument that rests on the notion of “phenomenal precision”: the phenomenal precision of a percept may change at a different rate from its representational counterpart. If so, there is then no representational feature that accounts for a specific change of this phenomenal feature. Therefore, Ground Representationism cannot (...) be generally true. -/- Although the notion of phenomenal precision is intuitive, it is admittedly in need of clarification. Here I reconstruct Block’s argument by suggesting a way of estimating phenomenal precision that is based on the assumption that parts of perceptual wholes can share phenomenal features independently of their place in the whole. Understood like this, the overall argument shows what it is supposed to show. -/- A more thorough look at the notion of phenomenal precision suggests tension with Block’s other work: in order to be non-trivial, we have to accept that some of our phenomenality is not concrete, but only generic. Such “solely generic phenomenology”, however, is a position mainly held by opponents to Block’s Access- vs. Phenomenal Consciousness-distinction. Interpreting phenomenal imprecision as constituted by introspective imprecision does not suffice as a way out. It seems that phenomenal precision is either trivial, self-contradictory, or incompatible with Block’s position elsewhere. So some additional elucidation on this crucial notion is needed. (shrink)

A monumental work on the flow of time, from the universe's creation to "Now," by the best-selling author of Physics for Future Presidents. "Now" is a simple concept--you're reading this sentence now. Yet a real definition of "now" has eluded even the great Einstein. We know that time stretches and is affected by gravity and velocity. Yet, as eminent physicist Richard A. Muller points out, it is only today that we have all the physics at hand--relativity, entropy, entanglement, antimatter, and (...) the Big Bang--to explain the flow of time. With these building blocks in place, Muller reaches a startling conclusion: our expanding universe is continuously creating not only new space but also new time. The front edge of this new time is what we call "now," and this moment is truly unique--it is the only moment in which we can exercise our free will. Muller's thought-provoking vision is a powerful counter to established theories in science and philosophy, and his arguments will spark major debate about the most fundamental assumptions of our universe. (shrink)

Biographical note: Sascha Bru, Genth University, Belgium; Peter Nicholls, University of Sussex, UK.

There is tension between commonly held views concerning phenomenal imagery on the one hand and our first-person epistemic access to it on the other. This tension is evident in many individual issues and experiments in philosophy and psychology (e.g. inattentional and change blindness, the speckled hen, dream coloration, visual periphery). To dissolve it, we can give up either (i) that we lack full introspective access to the phenomenal properties of our imagistic experiences, or (ii) that phenomenal imagery is fully determined, (...) or (iii) that phenomenal imagery does not exist. Which option is preferable? I explore the feasibility of option (ii) in more details by distinguishing between di erent kinds of indeterminacy. One of the most often proclaimed versions of indeterminacy is tied to Representationalism. However, I argue that in this context, Representationalism appears to be the least satisfying option, for which I give ten reasons. By abduction, we should reject Representationalism in favour of (i) or (iii)—the most parsimonious option being eliminativism, and the most conservative being the rejection of privileged access. The decision between these two, however, should be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on which is most adequate given the data. I illustrate this with the comparison between visual agnosia and Charles-Bonnet-Syndrome. (shrink)

Band I der zweibändigen Nietzsche-Interpretationen enthält sowohl bisher unveröffentlichte wie auch ergänzte und stark erweiterte Abhandlungen zu dieser zentralen Thematik in Nietzsches Philosophie. In ihnen werden die wichtigsten Schritte der vom Verfasser vertretenen und viel diskutierten Interpretation des "Willens zur Macht" sichtbar. Die Prozesse "der" Willen zur Macht konstituieren den "absoluten Fluß" des Werdens; im Ja-sagen zu dessen ewiger Wiederkunft vollendet sich auch Nietzsches "Philosophie der Macht". Die Deutung des Werdens als "Wille zur Macht" ist entscheidend von der Nachlaß-Kompilation der (...) Schwester Nietzsches beeinflußt worden. Der letzte Beitrag des Bandes geht der Geschichte dieser Wirkung und den mit ihr verbundenen Mißverständnissen nach. (shrink)

For nearly 70 years, studies have shown large sex differences in human mate selection preferences. However, most of the studies were restricted to a limited set of mate selection criteria and to college students, and neglecting relationship status. In this study, 21,245 heterosexual participants between 18 and 65 years of age (mean age 41) who at the time were not involved in a close relationship rated the importance of 82 mate selection criteria adapted from previous studies, reported age ranges for (...) the oldest and youngest partner that they would find acceptable, and responded to 10 yes/no questions about a potential marriage partner. For nearly all mate selection criteria, women were found to be the more demanding sex, although men placed consistently more value on the physical attractiveness of a potential partner than women. Also, the effects of the participants’ age and level of education were nearly negligible. These results demonstrate the robustness of sex differences in mate selection criteria across a substantial age range. (shrink)

With the Internet’s integration into mainstream society, online technologies have become a significant economic factor and a central aspect of everyday life. Thus, it is not surprising that news providers and social scientists regularly offer media-induced visions of a nearby future and that these horizons of expectation are continually expanding. This is true not only for the Web as a traditional media technology but also for 3D printing, which has freed modern media utopianism from its stigma of immateriality. Our article (...) explores the fundamental semantic structures and simplification patterns of popular media utopias and unfolds the thesis that their resounding success is based on their instantaneous connectivity and compatibility to societal discourses in a broad variety of cultural, political, or economic contexts. Further, it addresses the social functions of utopian concepts in the digital realm. (shrink)

Selbst wenn die traditionellen Beweise der immateriellen Seele (von Platon bis Descartes) zu wünschen übrig lassen, muss uns das nicht davon abhalten, sie mit den Mitteln der modernen analytischen Philosophie neu zu fassen und wasserdicht zu machen. Ich werde (ohne eigene Diskussion der bereits vorliegenden Beweise) eine neue Version vorschlagen, die von Swinburne angeregt wurde, sich an wesentlichen Stellen von seinem Ansatz unterscheidet und auf zwei verblüffend schwachen Prämissen beruht: Einerseits auf der konsistenten Vorstellbarkeit von Gedankenspielen, in die irgend eine (...) beliebige Wahrheit über meine augenblickliche Situation integriert ist und denen zufolge ich meinen Tod seelisch, aber ohne Körper überlebe; diese Prämisse ergibt sich der virtuosen Macht unseres Möglichkeitssinns. Andererseits beruht der Beweis auf einer Voraussetzung, die sich (ohne exegetische Garantie) als Echo aristotelischer Substanz-Konzeptionen verstehen, aber ohne großen ontologischen Überbau begründen lässt – dem zufolge folgt aus der materialistischen Analyse meiner augenblicklichen Situation, dass diese Analyse während meiner gesamten Existenz gilt (einmal Körper, immer Körper). Die Logik des Beweises ist bodenständig und setzt keine strittigen modallogischen Prinzipien voraus. Und die Konklusion des Beweises besagt, dass ich jetzt eine immaterielle Seele habe, aber nichts über deren Unsterblichkeit. (shrink)

My aims are exegetical rather than critical: I offer a systematic account of Hursthouse's ethical naturalism with an emphasis on the normative authority of the four ends, and try to correct some misconceptions found in the literature. Specifically, I argue that the four ends function akin to Wittgensteinian hinge-propositions for our practice of ethical reasoning and as such form part of a description of the logical grammar of said practice.