Kearns and Star have previously recommended that we measure the degree to which a reason supports a conclusion, either about how to act or what to believe, as the conditional probability of the conclusion given the reason. I show how to properly formulate this recommendation to allow for dependencies and conditional dependencies among the considerations being aggregated. This formulation allows us to account for how considerations, which do not themselves favour a specific conclusion, can modify the strength of a reason (...) for that conclusion, and thus to explain the intensifiers and attenuators described by Dancy. The formulation also accounts for the workings of partial undercutters in epistemology. I then show how my account avoids the counterexamples that Brunero levied against probability-based theories of the strengths of reasons. My account supports the theory, suggested by Kearns and Star, that the strengths of reasons are measured by conditional probabilities. If my account is successful, then it will count in favour of the idea that the strengths of reasons are measured on the same scale as are conditional probabilities. (shrink)

Liberal political philosophy emphasizes the benefits of membership in a cultural group and, in the opinion of this challenging book, neglects its harmful, oppressive aspects. Andrew Kernohan argues that an oppressive culture perpetuates inegalitarian social meanings and false assumptions about who is entitled to what. Cultural pollution harms fundamental interests in self-respect and knowledge of the good and is diffuse, insidious, and unnoticed. This cultural pollution is analogous to environmental pollution, and though difficult to detect, is nonetheless just (...) as real. The book's conclusion is that a liberal state committed to the moral equality of persons must accept a strong role in reforming our cultural environment. (shrink)

The philosophical tradition has given rise to many competing moral theories. Virtue ethics encourages the flourishing of the person, theories of justice and rights tell us to act according to principles, and consequentialist theories advise that we seek to bring about good ends. These varied theories highlight the morally relevant features of the problems that we encounter both in everyday personal interactions and on a broader social scale. When used together, they allow us to address moral conflicts by balancing a (...) plurality of reasons in order to reach nuanced ethical decisions. In _Ethical Reasoning: Theory and Application_, Andrew Kernohan guides the reader through the basics of these moral theories, showing their strengths and weaknesses and emphasizing the ways in which competing moral reasons can be collectively employed to guide decision-making. Throughout, the focus is on practical applications and on how each theory can play a role in solving problems and addressing issues. Numerous questions and exercises are provided to encourage active reflection and retention of information. (shrink)

A popular model of normative decision-making under uncertainty suggests choosing the option with the maximum expected moral choice-worthiness, where the choice-worthiness values from each moral theory, which are assumed commensurable, are weighted by credence and combined. This study adds descriptive uncertainty about the non-moral facts of a situation into the model by treating choice-worthiness as a random variable. When agents face greater descriptive uncertainty, the choice-worthiness random variable will have a greater spread and a larger standard deviation. MEC, as a (...) decision rule, is sensitive only to the expected value of the random variable and not to its standard deviation. For example, MEC is insensitive to cases where an option with a large degree of descriptive uncertainty may have a higher probability of being below some threshold of impermissibility than does an option with less dispersion, even though the latter has a higher expected choice-worthiness. When applied to the same situation, similar moral theories will have statistically correlated choice-worthiness values. This correlation affects the dispersion of the credence-weighted sum of the random variables but not its expected value. Thus, MEC is insensitive to aspects of the normative situation to which a good decision-rule should be sensitive. (shrink)

This book explains the basic concepts of environmental ethics and applies them to global environmental problems. The author concisely introduces basic moral theories, discusses how these theories can be extended to consider the non-human world, and examines how environmental ethics interacts with modern society’s economic approach to the environment. Online multiple-choice questions encourage the reader’s active learning.

This book aims to apply recent thinking in philosophy to the age-old problem of the meaning of life, and to do so in a way that is useful to atheists, agnostics, and humanists. The book reorients the search for meaning away from a search for purpose and toward a search for what truly matters, and criticizes our society's prevailing theory of value, the preference satisfaction theory of the economists. It next argues that emotions are our best guides to what matters (...) in life, and shows how emotional judgments about what matters can be true. Finally it discusses how a meaningful life can be lived, describes the role of justice, freedom, identity, and culture in its construction, and compares the meaningful with the happy life. Andrew Kernohan has a Ph.D in philosophy from the University of Toronto and is an Adjunct Professor at Dalhousie University. He is the author of Liberalism, Equality, and Cultural Oppression (Cambridge University Press, 1998) and various articles in professional philosophy journals. (shrink)

When there is only one source of pollution, the language of rights is adequate for justifying solutions to pollution problems. However, pollution is often both a public and an accumulative harm. According to Feinberg, an accumulative harm is a harm to some person brought about by the actions of many people when the action of no single person is sufficient, by itself, to cause the harm. For example, although no single car emits enough exhaust to do any harm, the emissions (...) from many cars can accumulate to an unhealthy level. In this paper, I argue that rights, understood in terms of the will theory of Hart and the interest theories of Lyons and Raz, cannot justify protecting people from public, accumulative harms. I conclude that pollution regulation should focus not on protecting people’s rights, but on preventing harm to people’s interests. (shrink)

From the standpoint of libertarian ideology, capitalism is a form of liberation. In contrast to the slave, whose productive powers are wholly owned by his master, and the serf, whose productive powers are partially owned by his lord, the worker under capitalism is presented as possessing the fullest possible self-ownership. That capitalism fosters self-ownership is a false and stultifying myth. Exposing its errors from within capitalism's own conceptual framework requires a careful analysis of the concept of a person's “ownership” bodh (...) of his or her productive powers and of the means of exercising these productive powers. This analysis will show that, in certain plausible circumstances, the capitalist economic system can make full self-ownership impossible. Since capitalism's supposed nurturing of self-ownership provides one of the major justifications for its moral legitimacy, capitalist ideology has a serious internal inconsistency. (shrink)

In a recent series of papers, Donald Davidson has put forward a challenging and original philosophy of mind which he has called anomalous monism. Anomalous monism has certain similarities to another recent and deservedly popular position: functionalist cognitive psychology. Both functionalism, in its materialist versions, and anomalous monism require token-token psychophysical identities rather than type-type ones. Both deny that psychology can be translated into, or scientifically reduced to, neurophysiology. Both are mentalistic theories, allowing psychology to make use of intentional descriptions (...) in its theorizing. Anomalous monism uses a belief/desire/action psychology; cognitive science makes use of information-bearing states. But these similarities must not be allowed to conceal an essential difference between the two positions. Cognitive psychology claims to be a science, making interesting, lawlike generalizations for the purpose of explaining mental activity. Anomalous monism denies that psychology is a science by denying that psychological laws can be formulated. Davidson has other ideas for psychology connected with his work on meaning and truth. Hence, the title of one of his essays on anomalous monism is “Psychology as Philosophy”. (shrink)

In two passages of A Theory of Justice Rawls suggests that, as a consequence of his egalitarian theory, the natural talents of persons are common property.We see then that the difference principle represents, in effect, an agreement to regard the distribution of natural talents as a common asset and to share in the benefits of this distribution whatever it turns out to be. The two principles are equivalent, as I have remarked, to an undertaking to regard the distribution of natural (...) abilities as a collective asset so that the more fortunate are to benefit only in ways that help those who have lost out. (shrink)

_Business Ethics: An Interactive Introduction_ connects the academic to the practical, extracting the basic elements of rigorous philosophical ethics into a format that can be understood and applied in the business world. Concepts such as utility, duty, and sustainability are given practical value and connected to examples and methods familiar to business people. Classical ethical theories are surveyed, as are modern perspectives on justice, equality, and the environment. Where possible, quantitative examples and methods are used to show that ethics need (...) not be subjective or vague. Kernohan provides an overview of the basic tools of ethical decision-making and shows how each can be used to resolve moral problems in business environments. Readers are then invited to apply those tools by completing a series of online exercises, receiving immediate objective feedback on their success. The book and its accompanying exercises thus work in concert, offering a unique opportunity for interactive self-directed learning. (shrink)

How can we lead a good life in a world without God? This clear, concise book applies recent thinking in philosophy to the age-old question of what gives meaning to our lives. The prose is simple, the arguments precise, the ideas powerful and thought-provoking. The book deals with many questions: Why does death not destroy the possibility of meaning? In what way is the search for purpose misleading? Why is there not just one thing that is the meaning of life? (...) Why do pleasures and satisfied desires often seem meaningless? What role do our emotions play in discovering that which truly matters? What is the nature of truth? How do our choices and commitments play a part in leading a meaningful life? Is a meaningful life necessarily a happy one? (shrink)

When there is only one source of pollution, the language of rights is adequate for justifying solutions to pollution problems. However, pollution is often both a public and an accumulative harm. According to Feinberg, an accumulative harm is a harm to some person brought about by the actions of many people when the action of no single person is sufficient, by itself, to cause the harm. For example, although no single car emits enough exhaust to do any harm, the emissions (...) from many cars can accumulate to an unhealthy level. In this paper, I argue that rights, understood in terms of the will theory of Hart and the interest theories of Lyons and Raz, cannot justify protecting people from public, accumulative harms. I conclude that pollution regulation should focus not on protecting people’s rights, but on preventing harm to people’s interests. (shrink)

Recent proposals by Taylor, Bennett, Wright and Cohen to identify teleological systems as systems governed by teleological laws and teleological laws as laws of a certain logical form are discussed. Suggested logical forms are treated with both extensional and simple non-extensional models of nomic necessity and shown to generate problematic entailments not derivable from the causal form alone.

Liberal political philosophy emphasizes the benefits of membership in a cultural group and, in the opinion of this challenging book, neglects its harmful, oppressive aspects. Andrew Kernohan argues that an oppressive culture perpetuates inegalitarian social meanings and false assumptions about who is entitled to what. Cultural pollution harms fundamental interests in self-respect and knowledge of the good and is diffuse, insidious, and unnoticed. This cultural pollution is analogous to environmental pollution, and though difficult to detect, is nonetheless just (...) as real. The book's conclusion is that a liberal state committed to the moral equality of persons must accept a strong role in reforming our cultural environment. (shrink)

Is a human more conscious than an octopus? In the science of consciousness, it’s oftentimes assumed that some creatures (or mental states) are more conscious than others. But in recent years, a number of philosophers have argued that the notion of degrees of consciousness is conceptually confused. This paper (1) argues that the most prominent objections to degrees of consciousness are unsustainable, (2) examines the semantics of ‘more conscious than’ expressions, (3) develops an analysis of what it is for a (...) degreed property to count as degrees of consciousness, and (4) applies the analysis to various theories of consciousness. I argue that whether consciousness comes in degrees ultimately depends on which theory of consciousness turns out to be correct. But I also argue that most theories of consciousness entail that consciousness comes in degrees. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of "objective phenomenology," or a way of understanding the phenomenal character of conscious experiences that doesn’t require one to have had the kinds of experiences under consideration. My central thesis is that structural facts about experience—facts that characterize purely how conscious experiences are structured—are objective phenomenal facts. I begin by precisifying the idea of objective phenomenology and diagnosing what makes any given phenomenal fact subjective. Then I defend the view that structural facts about experience are (...) objective. I also argue that structural facts about experience, despite being objective, nevertheless still give rise to an explanatory gap. (shrink)

How should politicians act? When should they try to lead public opinion and when should they follow it? Should politicians see themselves as experts, whose opinions have greater authority than other people's, or as participants in a common dialogue with ordinary citizens? When do virtues like toleration and willingness to compromise deteriorate into moral weakness? In this innovative work, Andrew Sabl answers these questions by exploring what a democratic polity needs from its leaders. He concludes that there are systematic, (...) principled reasons for the holders of divergent political offices or roles to act differently. Sabl argues that the morally committed civil rights activist, the elected representative pursuing legislative results, and the grassroots organizer determined to empower ordinary citizens all have crucial democratic functions. But they are different functions, calling for different practices and different qualities of political character. To make this case, he draws on political theory, moral philosophy, leadership studies, and biographical examples ranging from Everett Dirksen to Ella Baker, Frances Willard to Stokely Carmichael, Martin Luther King Jr. to Joe McCarthy. Ruling Passions asks democratic theorists to pay more attention to the "governing pluralism" that characterizes a diverse, complex democracy. It challenges moral philosophy to adapt its prescriptions to the real requirements of democratic life, to pay more attention to the virtues of political compromise and the varieties of human character. And it calls on all democratic citizens to appreciate "democratic constancy": the limited yet serious standard of ethical character to which imperfect democratic citizens may rightly hold their leaders--and themselves. (shrink)

What is the true calling of the intellectual? In this provocative new book, Andrew Shanks presents a distinctive fresh answer. The Other Calling is a systematic riposte both to the elitism of philosophy in the heritage of Plato, and to the typical individualism of Plato's philosophic opponents. Here, instead, intellectual integrity is identified with a form of priesthood. Asserts that intellectuals are critical to bringing together the common aspirations of a community Offers a strikingly original approach to the moral (...) and political aspects of theology’s relationship with philosophy, exploring the perspectives of both disciplines Draws on the work and thought of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, and Atheists Argues for a new, religiously multicultural “priesthood of all thinkers”, considering how once, all intellectuals were as a matter of course also priests Published in the new and prestigious Illuminations series. (shrink)

Paracelsus was a transmutational alchemist: For most of his career, he believed that one metal could be turned into another. In an alchemical text, the De renovatione et restauratione, he explored the theoretical foundations of transmutation and hinted at recipes for bringing it about. He proposed that from plants, gems, metals, and minerals might be prepared a class of marvelous medicaments, which he called prima entia (first entities). Each primum ens had particular uses, but the entia were all supposed to (...) be able to revitalize the human body and cleanse it of disease. Certain entia could also transmute metals. The De renovatione et restauratione affirmed the metaphysical centrality, in goldmaking and medicine alike, not just of purification or alteration but of renewal and transformation. It expressed the author’s eschatological excitement at God’s works of wonder, whether within or above nature. (shrink)

This essay considers Kant’s theory of modality in light of a debate in contemporary modal metaphysics and modal logic concerning the Barcan formulas. The comparison provides a new and fruitful perspective on Kant’s complex and sometimes confusing claims about possibility and necessity. Two central Kantian principles provide the starting point for the comparison: that the possible must be grounded in the actual and that existence is not a real predicate. Both are shown to be intimately connected to the Barcan formulas, (...) and Kant’s views on what he distinguishes as three different kinds of modality are then considered in light of this connection. (shrink)

One of the key achievements of critical realism has been to expose the modernist myth of universal reason, which holds that authentic knowledge claims must be objectively ‘pure’, uncontaminated by the subjectivity of local place, specific time and particular culture. Wright aims to address the lack of any substantial and sustained engagement between critical realism and theological critical realism with particular regard to: (a) the distinctive ontological claims of Christianity; (b) their epistemic warrant and intellectual legitimacy; and (c) scrutiny of (...) the primary source of the ontological claims of Christianity, namely the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, it functions as a prolegomena to a much needed wider debate, guided by the under-labouring services of critical realism, between Christianity and various other religious and secular worldviews. This important new text will help stimulate a debate that has yet to get out of first gear. This book will appeal to academics, graduate and post-graduate students especially, but also Christian clergy, ministers and informed laity, and members of the general public concerned with the nature of religion and its place in contemporary society. (shrink)

At a time when scientific knowledge is systematically whisked out of the domain of education and converted into private capital, the essays in this volume are ...

This book offers an exciting re-interpretation of Auguste Comte, the founder of French sociology. Following the development of his philosophy of positivism, Comte later focused on the importance of the emotions in his philosophy resulting in the creation of a new religious system, the Religion of Humanity. Andrew Wernick provides the first in-depth critique of Comte's concept of religion and its place in his thinking on politics, sociology and philosophy of science. He places Comte's ideas in the context of (...) post-1789 French political and intellectual history, and of modern philosophy, especially postmodernism. Wernick relates Comte to Marx and Nietzsche as seminal figures of modernity and examines key features of modern and postmodern French social theory, tracing the inherent flaws and disintegration of Comte's system. Wernick offers original and fascinating insights in this rich study which will attract a wide audience from sociologists and philosophers to cultural theorists and historians. (shrink)

Drawing on the philosophy of C. S. Peirce, Robinson develops a ‘semiotic model’ of the Trinity and proposes a new theology of nature according to which the evolving cosmos may be understood as bearing ‘vestiges of the Trinity in ...

Field theories have been central to physics over the last 150 years, and there are several theories in contemporary physics in which physical fields play key causal and explanatory roles. This paper proposes a novel field trope-bundle (FTB) ontology on which fields are composed of bundles of particularized property instances, called tropes and goes on to describe some virtues of this ontology. It begins with a critical examination of the dominant view about the ontology of fields, that fields are properties (...) of a substantial substratum. (shrink)

Philosophers have proposed many accounts of biological function. A coarse-grained distinction can be made between backward-looking views, which emphasise historical contributions to fitness, and forward-looking views, which emphasise the current contribution to fitness or role of a biological component within some larger system. These two views are often framed as being incompatible and conflicting with one another. The emerging field of synthetic biology, which involves applying engineering principles to the design and construction of biological systems, complicates things further by adding (...) intentional design as a source of function. In the current study we explored how biology experts and novices think about function in the context of single-celled, multi-celled, and synthetic organisms. We also explored the extent to which each group were function pluralists, and if they were function pluralists, which accounts of function tended to be endorsed together. The results showed a surprising degree of similarity between experts and novices in most contexts, although certain differences were apparent. Most surprisingly, we found evidence not only of function pluralism in both groups, but pluralism between backward-looking and forward-looking accounts. We discuss these findings in the context of the philosophical debate on function and consider the practical implications for public acceptance of synthetic biology. First, we argue that philosophers of biology should re-examine the purported incompatibility between accounts of function. Second, we argue that due to the introduction of an intentional aetiology in synthetic biology, there may be an inherent conflict between the views of experts and novices when thinking about synthetic biology. (shrink)

It is difficult for prioritarians to explain the degree to which justice requires redress for misfortune in a way that avoids imposing unreasonably high costs on more advantaged individuals whilst also economising on intuitionist appeals to judgment. An appeal to hypothetical insurance may be able to solve the problems of cost and judgment more successfully, and can also be defended from critics who claim that resource egalitarianism is best understood to favour the ex post elimination of envy over individual endowments.u.

This paper defines and defends a notion of teleological function which is fit to figure in explanations concerning how organic systems, and the items which compose them, are able to perform certain activities, such as surviving and reproducing or pumping blood. According to this notion, a teleological function of an item (such as the heart) is a typical way in which items of that type contribute to some containing system's ability to do some activity. An account of what it is (...) for an item to contribute to a containing system's ability to perform an activity is provided. I argue that the view acquires its normative status in virtue of the fact that it obeys a function-accident distinction and obeys a function-dysfunction distinction; that the view is ahistorical; and, that its ahistoricity provides it with an advantage over one of its main competitors. (shrink)

Unconsciousness and quasiconsciousness in Plotinus -- The significance of practical ethics for Plotinus -- Action and contemplation in Plotinus -- Eternity and time -- Soul and time in Plotinus -- Reason and experience in Plotinus -- Plotinus on fate and free will -- Potentiality and the problem of plurality in the intelligible world -- Dunamis in Plotinus and Porphyry -- Plotinus and the myth of love -- The object of perception in Plotinus -- Plotinus on ideas between Plato and Aristotle (...) -- The Neoplatonic Socrates -- Porphyrian studies since 1913 -- Porphyry: scope for a reassessment -- A Porphyrian treatise against Aristotle? -- Did Porphyry reject the transmigration of human souls into animals -- Porphyry and pagan religious practice -- Religion, magic and theurgy in Porphyry -- Porphyry and the Platonic theology -- More Neoplatonic ethics -- Hypostasis and hyparxis in Porphyry -- Philosophical objections to Christianity on the eve of the Great Persecution -- Iamblichus' views on the relationship of philosophy to religion in De Mysteriis -- Further thoughts on Iamblichus as the first philosopher of religion. (shrink)

Between inventing the concept of a universal computer in 1936 and breaking the German Enigma code during World War II, Alan Turing, the British founder of computer science and artificial intelligence, came to Princeton University to study mathematical logic. Some of the greatest logicians in the world--including Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann, and Stephen Kleene--were at Princeton in the 1930s, and they were working on ideas that would lay the groundwork for what would become known as computer science. (...) Though less well known than his other work, Turing's 1938 Princeton PhD thesis, "Systems of Logic Based on Ordinals," which includes his notion of an oracle machine, has had a lasting influence on computer science and mathematics. This book presents a facsimile of the original typescript of the thesis along with essays by Andrew Appel and Solomon Feferman that explain its still-unfolding significance. A work of philosophy as well as mathematics, Turing's thesis envisions a practical goal--a logical system to formalize mathematical proofs so they can be checked mechanically. If every step of a theorem could be verified mechanically, the burden on intuition would be limited to the axioms. Turing's point, as Appel writes, is that "mathematical reasoning can be done, and should be done, in mechanizable formal logic." Turing's vision of "constructive systems of logic for practical use" has become reality: in the twenty-first century, automated "formal methods" are now routine. Presented here in its original form, this fascinating thesis is one of the key documents in the history of mathematics and computer science. (shrink)