It is intuitive that, under certain circumstances, it can be disrespectful or patronizing to excuse someone for an attitude. While it is easy enough to find instances where it seems disrespectful to excuse an attitude, matters are complicated. When and why, precisely, is it disrespectful to judge that someone is not responsible for his attitude? In this paper, I show, first, that the extant philosophical literature on this question is underdeveloped and overgeneralized: the writers who address the question suggest quite (...) strikingly that it is always disrespectful to excuse a sane, rational agent for his attitude, and their arguments rely on false generalizations about what is involved in excusing an attitude. I then sketch an account of respect to explain when and why it is disrespectful to excuse an attitude. Using this account, I show that one can coherently excuse an attitude even in some cases where that attitude was produced by a responsiveness to reasons. (shrink)

What minimal role—if any—must consciousness of morally significant information play in an account of moral worth? According to one popular view, a right action is morally worthy only if the agent is conscious (in some sense) of the facts that make it right. I argue against this consciousness condition and close cousins of it. As I show, consciousness of such facts requires much more sophistication than writers typically suggest—this condition would bar from moral worth most ordinary, intuitively morally worthy agents. (...) Moreover, I show that the attraction to this flavor of consciousness condition rests on mistaken assumptions about what is required for a right act to be non-accidentally right and attributable to the agent. Drawing some lessons from the discussion, I defend a Value-Secured Reliability Theory of Moral Worth and show how a minimal yet indispensable role for consciousness falls out from it. On this independently plausible theory, an action can be morally worthy even when the agent is unaware of the right-making features of her action. (shrink)

This article rejects Gideon Rosen's skeptical argument that attributions of blameworthiness are never epistemically justified. Granting Rosen's controversial claim that an act is blameworthy only if it is either akratic or the causal upshot of some akratic act, I show that we can and should resist his skeptical conclusion. I show, first, that Rosen's argument is, at best, hostage to a much more global skepticism about attributions of praiseworthiness, doxastic justification, and other phenomena which essentially involve causal‐historical facts about mental (...) states. I then show how, equipped with proper background knowledge, we can justifiedly attribute blameworthiness. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Epidemics that were probably influenza have been reported throughout recorded history. There were 13 fairly severe epidemics during the 18th century and 12 during the 19th century. Probably 8 of these 25 were influenza pandemics. In the 20th century there have been 4 pandemics (1918/19, 1957/58, 1968/69 and 1977) due to the emergence of new subtypes of influenza A virus. The great pandemic of 1918/19 caused an estimated 20 million deaths. Between pandemics usually there have been epidemics of varying severity (...) at intervals of one to three years and a trickle of sporadic cases every winter. The morbidity and mortality rates have varied greatly from epidemic to epidemic and from place to place during the same epidemic. Generally the morbidity has been lowest in people over 60 years of age, but, except for 1918/19, the mortality has been predominantly in old people. The epidemic behaviour of influenza has been so erratic and difficult to understand that there are still a few scientists who consider that extraterrestrial influences operate. These views are not taken seriously by most virologists but there are puzzling aspects of influenza that are not yet understood. (shrink)

Let all finite sequences of letters of the English alphabet be ordered serially so that shorter sequences precede longer ones, and sequences of the same length are ordered alphabetically. Thus, an ordinal number is assigned to every possible English sentence of finite length. Among these numbers, some--call them S-numbers --will be the numbers of sentences which are instructions for writing down an infinite sequence of numbers. Now, it is impossible to state, in an English sentence of finite length, a generally (...) applicable procedure for determining whether an arbitrarily given number is an S-number. (shrink)

This most stupendous revolution in all intellectual history may seem in retrospect to have been long overdue. However, since myths are far more satisfying, emotionally and esthetically, than metaphysics, which moreover has no immediate survival value, we should wonder not at the tardiness of this development but rather at its having ever got started.

Received interpretation. As far as I have been able to determine, all scholars who have dealt with this fragment have followed Plutarch in holding that.

W. I. Matson; VIII—Against Induction and Empiricism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 62, Issue 1, 1 June 1962, Pages 143–158, https://doi.org/10.

Background Medical ethics deals with the ethical obligations of doctors to their patients, colleagues and society. The annual reports of Sri Lanka Medical Council indicate that the number of complaints against doctors has increased over the years. We aimed to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding medical ethics among doctors in three teaching hospitals in Sri Lanka. Methods A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted among doctors using a pre-tested self-administered, anonymous questionnaire. Chi Squared test, and ANOVA test (...) were used to identify the significance of association between level of knowledge and selected factors. Results Most doctors had a poor level of knowledge on medical ethics, with postgraduate trainees showing significantly higher level of knowledge. The average knowledge on medical ethics among doctors was significantly different between the three hospitals. Over 95% had a favourable attitude towards gaining knowledge and advocated the need for training. The majority indicated awareness of unethical practices. 24.6% of respondents stated that they get a chaperone ‘sometimes’ during patient examination while 3.5% never do. The majority responded that they never accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies in recognition of their prescribing pattern. 12–41% of doctors participated in the study acknowledged that they ‘sometime’ engaged in unethical practices related to prescribing drugs, accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies and when obtaining leave. Conclusion Most doctors had a poor level of knowledge of medical ethics. Postgraduate trainees had a higher level of knowledge than other doctors. The majority showed a favourable attitude towards gaining knowledge and the need of training. Regular in-service training on medical ethics for doctors would help to improve their knowledge on medical ethics, as well as attitudes and ethical conduct. (shrink)

I argue, In opposition to george f burch, That anaximander was not a metaphysician but a natural scientist, And a very great one.

Received interpretation. As far as I have been able to determine, all scholars who have dealt with this fragment have followed Plutarch in holding that and are synonyms for ‘body’ and ‘void’ respectively, and the purport of the pronouncement is simply that ‘even void has a nature and substantiality of its own’ . But is included in Aristotle's dictionary of Atomist jargon, while is put better in the celebrated Fragment 125 . In consequence, Fragment 156 has been deemed more curious (...) than important. Despite the extreme scarcity of Democritean fragments other than moralizings, Kirk and Raven do not even print it. No doubt this assumed unimportance explains why it has not been noticed how unsatisfactory Plutarch's exegesis is. (shrink)

Nevertheless it is unfortunate that the great "sophist" has been cast into the outer darkness. Much of Plato's polemic becomes puzzling if it is not realized that the partisans of "opinion" as against "knowledge" were neither straw men nor the uncultured Many, but the leader and members of a vigorous and influential school, well-matched in their war with the Academy. Furthermore, Isocrates' philosophical views are of interest both intrinsically and as anticipations, sometimes astonishing, of various contemporary movements which profess allegiance (...) to "common sense.". (shrink)

In the particular case of Heraclitus, the complexity of the problem of interpretation is compounded by virtue of the stylistic peculiarities of his expression, which is apophthegmatic, logically asyndetic, cryptically symbolic, and haughtily enigmatic. It is not surprising, therefore, that in successive ages Heraclitus has been held up to glory or obloquy as the teacher of a Flowing Philosophy eventuating in irrationalism and mysticism; as the inspirer of Stoicism, conflagration and all; as the avatar of Satan behind the Monarchian heresy (...) of Noëtus; as he who first dimly discerned the Grundeinsicht of Hegelianism; as a Fascist, a Marxist, a Nietzschean, an Existentialist. (shrink)

In the particular case of Heraclitus, the complexity of the problem of interpretation is compounded by virtue of the stylistic peculiarities of his expression, which is apophthegmatic, logically asyndetic, cryptically symbolic, and haughtily enigmatic. It is not surprising, therefore, that in successive ages Heraclitus has been held up to glory or obloquy as the teacher of a Flowing Philosophy eventuating in irrationalism and mysticism; as the inspirer of Stoicism, conflagration and all; as the avatar of Satan behind the Monarchian heresy (...) of Noëtus; as he who first dimly discerned the Grundeinsicht of Hegelianism; as a Fascist, a Marxist, a Nietzschean, an Existentialist. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay examines the experiences of three 19th-century African American travelers to Greece—David Dorr (1852), Frederick Douglass (1887), and John Wesley Gilbert (1890–1)—using evidence from their letters, diaries, and published writings. The essay shows that although each traveler's unique personal perspective shaped his response to seeing the ancient sites and monuments of Greece, all three men responded most deeply to a site connected with Greece's Christian heritage: the Areopagus or Mars Hill, where according to 19th-century understanding the Apostle Paul had (...) spoken the words recorded in the Book of Acts. (shrink)

Under the impact of cultural, economic and legislative forces the traditional role of the university health center is changing. The academic health center is rapidly evolving from a relatively undifferentiated general hospital, primarily responsible for the education of undergraduate students of medicine, into a center of clinical research, caring for very specialized mixes of patients, and having as its primary educational mission the training of subspecialists. The nature of the forces responsible for this change are analyzed, and some of its (...) possible consequences for the definition of quality health care, for the shape of medical practice and medical education, and for the allocation of resources for health care are explored. This exploration suggests that the functional separation of the medical school from the highly technical, clinical research center is inevitable. This in turn may exacerbate tensions within medicine between the physician as scientist and as healer, between curative and preventive practice and between personal and public health. Although the effects of this separation on medical education remain obscure, it has already occasioned the most comprehensive review of the medical curriculum since the time of Flexner. Out of this is likely to develop a more generalist view of the education of future physicians. (shrink)