[Samuel Scheffler] Some egalitarian liberals have proposed a division of moral labour between social institutions and individual agents, but the division-of-labour metaphor has been understood in different ways. This paper aims to disentangle some of these different understandings, with an eye to clarifying the appeal of the egalitarian-liberal project and the challenges that it faces. The idea of a division of moral labour is best understood as the expression of a strategy for accommodating diverse values. It is not an apology (...) for economic self-interest or a device for justifying personal acquisitiveness. /// [Véronique Munoz-Dardé] Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

In Human Morality, I attempt to do two things. The first is to distinguish carefully among questions concerning morality’s scope, content, authority, and deliberative role, and to emphasize the importance of addressing all four of these topics if we are to understand the relation between morality and the point of view of the individual agent. The second is to explore each of these topics myself, and, in so doing, to sketch one interpretation of the place of moral concerns in human (...) life. (shrink)

[ Samuel Scheffler] Some egalitarian liberals have proposed a division of moral labour between social institutions and individual agents, but the division-of-labour metaphor has been understood in different ways. This paper aims to disentangle some of these different understandings, with an eye to clarifying the appeal of the egalitarian-liberal project and the challenges that it faces. The idea of a division of moral labour is best understood as the expression of a strategy for accommodating diverse values. It is not an (...) apology for economic self-interest or a device for justifying personal acquisitiveness. /// [Véronique Munoz-Dardé] Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article is a response to contributions by Tina Rulli and Jay Wallace to a symposium on my book Why Worry about Future Generations? I respond to questions Rulli raises about my ‘Value Dependence Thesis' and about the status of ‘meliorative projects’. I respond to questions Wallace raises about the nature of humanity as an object of love and attachment. I also address points he makes about the relation between reasons of beneficence and the attachment-independent reasons provided by the (...) value of humanity. (shrink)

Are there distinctively political values? Certain egalitarians seem to think that equality is one such value. Scheffler 's contribution to the symposium seeks to articulate a division of moral labour between norms of personal morality and the principles of justice that regulate social institutions, and using this suggests that the egalitarian critique of Rawls can be deflected. In this paper, instead, I question the status of equality as an intrinsic value. I argue that an egalitarianism which focuses on the status (...) of equality as valuable in itself embraces a theory of value with the worst elements of utilitarianism while leaving behind any of the intuitive appeal that utilitarianism has. In its place I press that we need a political conception of egalitarianism which stresses the role of equality as a political ideal without presupposing any values with which we engage beyond those found in the norms of personal morality. (shrink)

The paper outlines an analysis of token causation . It contains reasons for the choice of event tokens and a list of properties of causal relations. After defining the notion event it is shown, in which form classical philosophical problems arise and how they can be solved: Causality is interpreted as an second order property of first order relations. Temporal order can be induced from causal order. Token causation does not involve neither any kind of necessity, nor probability. Causal laws (...) are generalizations on sentences about token causation by quantifying over event types. Two explications of Causal law are suggested, differing in the ability of allowing for exceptions. (shrink)

I am very grateful to Professors Darwall, Rorty, and Wolf for their serious and stimulating responses to my book. I will reply to their essays separately, since, for the most part, they raise separate issues.

Moral sceptics appear to be as common outside of philosophy as they are within philosophy. And moral scepticism, unlike some philosophical issues, is very widely felt to be important, troubling, and persistent. My aims in this paper are to draw together some ideas from the recent philosophical literature, and to use these ideas as the basis for one kind of response to the moral sceptic. For reasons that will soon become clear, some anti-sceptical moral philosophers may feel that this response (...) to the sceptic is nothing but a form of concession. Yet my position represents an attempt to defend a kind of moral objectivity, to demonstrate at least the possibility of a certain sort of moral universality, and most especially to do justice to the very central role of morality in our lives. Thus I expect that many sceptics, too, will regard my position as unsatisfactory. It might be thought foolhardy to advance a position that seems likely to alienate so many parties to the dispute it addresses. But popular solutions to the problem of moral scepticism are in short supply, and I hope to show that my position can capture what is compelling in the sceptical argument, while at the same time doing justice to the dignity and importance of morality. (shrink)

W artykule rozważa się okresy warunkowe oparte na systemie ścisłego entailment Fs skonstruowanym przez Wessela. Poprzez uzupełnienie aksjomatyki i reguł inferencji Fs otrzymuje się system FSK, posiadający dwie struktury implikacyjne, typu: entailment i okresu warunkowego. Konsekwencją dalszej modyfikacji systemu FSK poprzez wprowadzenie dodatkowych reguł inferencji. systemy FSK5, FSK6 i FSK7, jest zmiana odpowiednich klas okresów warunkowych bez zmiany entailment.

In Human Morality, I attempt to do two things. The first is to distinguish carefully among questions concerning morality’s scope, content, authority, and deliberative role, and to emphasize the importance of addressing all four of these topics if we are to understand the relation between morality and the point of view of the individual agent. The second is to explore each of these topics myself, and, in so doing, to sketch one interpretation of the place of moral concerns in human (...) life. (shrink)

Starmaking brings together a cluster of work published over the past 35 years by Nelson Goodman and two Harvard colleagues, Hilary Putnam and Israel Scheffler, on the conceptual connections between monism and pluralism, absolutism and relativism, and idealism and different notions of realism -- issues that are central to metaphysics and epistemology. The title alludes to Goodman's famous defense of the claim that because all true representations of stars and other objects are human creations, it follows that in an important (...) sense the stars themselves are made by us. More generally, the argument moves from the fact that our right representations are constructed by us to the claim that the world itself is similarly constructed. Starmaking addresses the question of whether this seeming paradox can be turned into a serious philosophical view. Goodman and Putnam are sympathetic; Scheffler is the critic. Although many others continue to write about pluralism, relativism, and constructionalism, Starmaking brings together the protagonists in the debate since its beginnings and follows closely its still developing form and substance, focusing sharply on Goodman's claim that "we make versions, and right versions make worlds.". (shrink)

In his valuable book [3], Israel Scheffler presents an extended critique of Thomas Kuhn's philosophy of science. Scheffler argues against Kuhn's “main thesis,” namely that “... paradigm change in science is not generally subject to deliberation and critical assessment”. Scheffler does recognize, though, that there are important elements of Kuhn's view that themselves seem to conflict with this “main thesis.” For these elements seem to make possible deliberation, critical assessment, and objectivity in the discussion of scientific paradigms. So it appears (...) from Scheffler's critique that Kuhn's position is inconsistent. The puzzle is compounded by Kuhn's admission—indeed, insistence—that his book does contain “a preliminary codification of good reasons for theory choice. These are... reasons of exactly the kind standard in philosophy of science: accuracy, scope, simplicity, fruitfulness, and the like”. In his recent reply to Kuhn, Scheffler quotes this passage from Kuhn and says: “If these reasons are not... to be construed as utterly free of all constraints or themselves paradigm-dependent, then they allow the comparison of rival paradigms and make paradigm debates intelligible. Such intelligibility is, however, at odds with Kuhn's statement that the proponents of competing paradigms ‘will inevitably talk through each other’”. In this interchange between Scheffler and Kuhn, one gets the impression of people, if not paradigms, talking “through each other.” I think that this nonmeeting of minds is due to interpreting Kuhn as an opponent of objectivity when in fact he is not an opponent but a proponent. It is this misinterpretation which produces the apparent inconsistency in Kuhn's position. In this paper I suggest a way of understanding Kuhn which resolves this apparent inconsistency in his work and might help to focus discussion on the real issue between Kuhn and many of his critics. This suggestion has the crucial consequence of shifting the focus from objectivity to the real issue, namely truth. (shrink)

Samuel Scheffler postulates that we derive more value and meaning from our lives because we have confidence in the indefinite continuation of humanity than we do from our own or our loved ones’ continued existence. Scheffler believes that this shows humans to be less egocentric than some believe. He offers two thought experiments to motivate this intuition. The first thought experiment depends on the second to control for certain intuitions that run counter to the intuitions Scheffler wants to elicit. So, (...) Scheffler is committed to using both thought experiments. The second of the two, and the one on which the first depends, is a scenario in which people become infertile and humanity dies out over the course of a single generation. I argue that this scenario can be more reasonably taken to show that value and meaning in life does not depend on a collective afterlife. I argue that the particulars we value in such a scenario from both a normative and descriptive perspective may change, but that a robust notion of value, and consequently meaning, can exist despite the knowledge that humanity will not continue indefinitely into the future. I also address the reason we might find the slow extinction of humanity unsettling for reasons unrelated to the loss of a collective afterlife. I conclude by presenting a thought experiment challenging the idea that the afterlife conjecture deals any substantial blow to the supposed extent of human egocentrism. (shrink)

This paper resolves the problems raised by Israel Scheffler and Noam Chomsky against Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. I call Scheffler’s and Chomsky’s problems as (1) the problem of inexorable ontological commitments and (2) the problem of false existential inferences. I extend their problems to a third one, which is called as the problem of extended inexorable ontological commitments to rival entities. In order to present the third problem, two ontological disputes are considered: Russell–Meinong dispute from the context of the (...) referential theory of meaning and David Lewis–Meinong dispute from the context of modal metaphysics. In order to work out a resolution to these three problems, I emphasize the distinction between meta-ontology/meta-theory and object theory. Then, it is explained that there is a functional difference between Quine’s criterion of ontological commitments (meta-theory) and the object theories to which this criterion is applied. Here, considering the functional difference, I introduce different kinds of commitments: direct commitments and indirect commitments. Using Strawson’s views on the notion of presupposition, the distinction between direct commitments and indirect commitments is characterized further. Employing this distinction, I resolve the problem of inexorable ontological commitment to the entities, the problem of false existential inferences and the problems of extended inexorable ontological commitment to the rival entities. (shrink)

Consider the utterances ‘our friendship is valuable’ and ‘I value our friendship’. On the face of it, these aren’t semantic equivalents: the former ascribes a property to our friendship, whereas the latter reports something about how I relate to our friendship. In this short paper, I first outline Samuel Scheffler’s account of valuing and of the difference between valuing and considering valuable. I then propose an amendment to his account of valuing, one which concerns how we interact with our value-related (...) emotions. Subsequently, I argue against Scheffler’s view of the distribution of valuing and considering valuable in the world. While I don’t deny that considering valuable without valuing is conceptually possible and indeed instantiated, I disagree that it’s typical within our evaluative lives. Next, I consider an obvious response to my empirical claim and sketch a dilemma which accompanies that response. Finally, I highlight two limits of my empirical claim. (shrink)

Consider the utterances ‘our friendship is valuable’ and ‘I value our friendship’. On the face of it, these aren’t semantic equivalents: the former ascribes a property to our friendship, whereas the latter reports something about how I relate to our friendship. In this short paper, I first outline Samuel Scheffler’s account of valuing and of the difference between valuing and considering valuable. I then propose an amendment to his account of valuing, one which concerns how we interact with our value-related (...) emotions. Subsequently, I argue against Scheffler’s view of the distribution of valuing and considering valuable in the world. While I don’t deny that considering valuable without valuing is conceptually possible and indeed instantiated, I disagree that it’s typical within our evaluative lives. Next, I consider an obvious response to my empirical claim and sketch a dilemma which accompanies that response. Finally, I highlight two limits of my empirical claim. (shrink)

Consider the utterances ‘our friendship is valuable’ and ‘I value our friendship’. On the face of it, these aren’t semantic equivalents: the former ascribes a property to our friendship, whereas the latter reports something about how I relate to our friendship. In this short paper, I first outline Samuel Scheffler’s account of valuing and of the difference between valuing and considering valuable. I then propose an amendment to his account of valuing, one which concerns how we interact with our value-related (...) emotions. Subsequently, I argue against Scheffler’s view of the distribution of valuing and considering valuable in the world. While I don’t deny that considering valuable without valuing is conceptually possible and indeed instantiated, I disagree that it’s typical within our evaluative lives. Next, I consider an obvious response to my empirical claim and sketch a dilemma which accompanies that response. Finally, I highlight two limits of my empirical claim. (shrink)

The burden of this piece is to draw together into a coherent whole the somewhat diverse strands of Israel Scheffler's thought on the philosophy of religion. Extrapolating from personal discussions with Professor Scheffler, various of his books, articles, and other unpublished materials authored and kindly provided by him, I contend that he adumbrates a post-empiricist rendering of religious belief which masterfully avoids some philosophical problems, while unwittingly giving rise to others. Committed to the view that the methodology of science – (...) in one or other of its more acceptable guises – provides the most reliable measure of the content and structure of reality. Scheffler is bound conceptually to redefine Jewish belief in such a way that the traditional conflict between religion and science never emerges. Consistent with this end, he is concerned to divest traditional Judaism of its metaphysical garb, so that what remains are simply the matters of living to which religion ought properly on his view address itself. The Bible is thus reconceptualized as a piece of rich literature, of no real difference in logical kind to any other piece of rich literature, except that it defines uniquely, along with the Torah and other relevant Jewish literature, the history of the particular community whose perception of human values and meaningfulness forms the core of what it is to be Jewish. (shrink)

In his recent book, Death and the Afterlife, Samuel Scheffler argues that it matters greatly to us that there be other human beings long after our own deaths. In support of this “Afterlife Thesis,” as I call it, he provides a thought experiment—the “doomsday scenario”—in which we learn that, although we ourselves will live a normal life span, 30 days after our death the earth will be completely destroyed. In this paper I question this “doomsday scenario” support for Scheffler’s Afterlife (...) Thesis. In particular, I suggest that Scheffler has underestimated the importance of a good ending. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In his innovative and thought-provoking Why Worry About Future Generations? Samuel Scheffler argues that the value of many of our present-day projects depends upon the existence of future generations, and this gives us one major reason to care about their fate. I raise questions about this ‘Value Dependence Thesis’ by comparing an imminent human extinction scenario to the case of imminent individual death. If an imminently dying individual can still find much value in their remaining life, then why should (...) it be any different for humanity facing imminent extinction? Scheffler anticipates this kind of argument; I respond to his objection to this analogy. I also raise a concern about the value of meliorative projects as providing reason in favor of continued human existence. While meliorative projects have instrumental value contingent on the existence of future generations, this value does not count in favor of their existing. Despite raising these concerns, I agree with Scheffler that many of our actual activities presuppose the survival of humanity and that we are antecedently interested in and committed to their survival. Moreover, Scheffler’s novel approach offers us a creative, sophisticated, and rich resource for developing the ethics of future generations. (shrink)

This paper argues that certain influential views to the contrary, without an overall aim of education no philosophy of education is neither complete nor intelligible. On this assumption, it intends to show i) that in spite of the absence of the explicit statement, a certain view on the ultimate aim of education implicitly underlies all specific educational views of Professor Scheffler, which should be defined in terms of rationality constituting human dignity, and which the author of the paper is convinced (...) to be the most adquate among other competing views, and ii) that in this respect Professor Scheffler stands on the same line at least with two great philosophers of education: Confucius and Dewey. (shrink)

Morality can hardly perform a function, which is discussed in this chapter, unless it offers directives that not only can but frequently do differ from those of self-interest itself. The idea of potential congruence asserts that the relation between morality and the interests of the individual agent is characterized by a high degree of mutual accommodation, so that the frequency and severity of conflict between these two perspectives is significantly reduced. Conflicts are nevertheless possible in principle, but the extent to (...) which they arise in practice is not fixed or immutable. Instead, the frequency of conflict depends to a considerable degree on the character of the prevailing social and political institutions. Achieving convergence between morality and self-interest is in part a social and political task. The account of the “priority” of morality developed by Thomas Scanlon in his book What We Owe to Each Other is similar in a number of respects to this chapter's account of potential congruence. (shrink)

In the 1920s, scientists at the University of Cambridge’s Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry made major contributions to the emerging discipline of biochemistry while also devoting considerable time and energy to the production of a humor journal entitled Brighter Biochemistry. Although humor is frequently regarded as peripheral to the work of science, the journal provides an opportunity to understand how it contributes to the social infrastructure of scientific communities as modern workplaces. Taking methodological cues from cultural history, ethnography, and (...) humor studies, this essay conducts a close and contextual reading of Brighter Biochemistry. This reading demonstrates how humor served as a central means through which members of the Dunn confronted workplace issues, including creating cooperative work teams, responding to gender discrimination, addressing funding anxiety, and defining professional identity. These conclusions provide a new perspective on the well-documented history of the Dunn and also offer a model for how historians of science can approach humor when its traces are encountered in other settings. (shrink)

This paper presents a micro-history of an object in the collection of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, with an emphasis on how Wh.3469 reflects a hybrid of two different interwar British X-ray crystallographic communities, namely those based in WL Bragg’s physics laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester and the Crystallographic Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. It explores connections between Wh.3469’s final design and construction and the different interests each community had in X-ray crystallography.Keywords: Powder camera; (...) British X-ray crystallography; Object history. (shrink)

We normally take it for granted that other people will live on after we ourselves have died. Even if we do not believe in a personal afterlife in which we survive our own deaths, we assume that there will be a "collective afterlife" in which humanity survives long after we are gone. Samuel Scheffler maintains that this assumption plays a surprising - indeed astonishing - role in our lives.

This book is a collection of eleven essays by one of the most interesting moral philosophers currently writing. It examines challenges to liberal thought posed by the changing circumstances of the modern world such as the conflicting tendencies toward global integration, and greater ethnic and communal identification. The author considers whether liberal principles of justice can accommodate social and global interdependencies while reaffirming the importance of individual responsibility and acknowledging the significance of people's diverse personal and communal allegiances.

In contemporary philosophy, substantive moral theories are typically classified as either consequentialist or deontological. Standard consequentialist theories insist, roughly, that agents must always act so as to produce the best available outcomes overall. Standard deontological theories, by contrast, maintain that there are some circumstances where one is permitted but not required to produce the best overall results, and still other circumstances in which one is positively forbidden to to do. Classical utilitarianism is the most familiar consequentialist view, but it is (...) widely regarded as an inadequate account of morality. Although Professor Scheffler agrees with this assessment, he also believes that consequentialism seems initially plausible, and that there is a persistent air of paradox surrounding typical deontological views. In this book, therefore, he undertakes to reconsider the rejection of consequentialism. He argues that it is possible to provide a rationale for the view that agents need not always produce the best possible overall outcomes, and this motivates one departure from consequentialism; but he shows that it is surprisingly difficult to provide a satisfactory rationale for the view that there are times when agents must not produce the best possible overall outcomes. He goes on to argue for a hitherto neglected type of moral conception, according to which agents are always permitted, but not always required, to produce the best outcomes. (shrink)

Some people believe that the demands of morality coincide with the requirements of an enlightened self-interest. Others believe that morality is diametrically opposed to considerations of self-interest. This book argues that there is another position, intermediate between these extremes, which makes better sense of the totality of our moral thought and practice. Scheffler elaborates this position via an examination of morality's content, scope, authority, and deliberative role. Although conflicts between morality and self-interest do arise, according to this position, nevertheless morality (...) is fundamentally a reasonable and humane phenomenon. Moreover, the psychological bases of effective moral motivation have sources deep within the self, and morally motivated individuals try to shape their own interests so as to avoid conflict with morality. Since human practices and institutions help to determine the prevalence of these motives, and since in this and other ways they influence the degree to which conflicts between morality and self-interest actually occur, the extent of such conflict is not fixed or immutable, and is in part a social and political issue. (shrink)

We present a study of the linguistic output of the German-speaking writer Robert Walser using Natural Language Processing (NLP). We curated a corpus comprising texts written by Walser during periods of sound health, and writings from the year before his hospitalization, and writings from the first year of his stay in a psychiatric clinic, all likely attributed to schizophrenia. Within this corpus, we identified and analyzed a total of 20 linguistic markers encompassing established metrics for lexical diversity, semantic similarity, and (...) syntactic complexity. Additionally, we explored lesser-known markers such as lexical innovation, concreteness, and imageability. Notably, we introduced two additional markers for phonological similarity for the first time within this context. Our findings reveal significant temporal dynamics in these markers closely associated with Walser’s contemporaneous diagnosis of schizophrenia. Furthermore, we investigated the relationship between these markers, leveraging them for classification of the schizophrenic episode. (shrink)

Many recent political philosophers have attempted to demonstrate that choice and responsibility can be incorporated into the framework of an egalitarian theory of distributive justice. This article argues, however, that the project of developing a responsibility-based conception of egalitarian justice is misconceived. The project represents an attempt to defuse conservative criticism of the welfare state and of egalitarian liberalism more generally. But by mimicking the conservative’s emphasis on choice and responsibility, advocates of responsibility-based egalitarianism unwittingly inherit the conservative’s unsustainable justificatory (...) ambitions, unattractive moralism, and questionable metaphysical commitments. More importantly, they misrepresent the nature of our concern with equality as a value. (shrink)

Why should we care what happens to future generations? Samuel Scheffler argues that we are more invested in the fate of our descendants than we may realize. Implicit in our own attachments are powerful reasons for wanting the chain of human generations to persist into the indefinite future under conditions conducive to human flourishing.

In this anthology, distinguished scholars--Thomas Nagel, T.M. Scanlon, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Samuela Scheffler, Conrad D. Johnson, Bernard Williams, Peter Railton, Amartya Sen, Philippa Foot, and Derek Parfit-- debate arguments for and against the moral doctrine of consequentialism to present a complete view of this important topic in moral philosophy.

Valuing -- Morality and reasonable partiality -- Doing and allowing -- The division of moral labour : egalitarian liberalism as moral pluralism -- Is the basic structure basic? -- Cosmopolitanism, justice, and institutions -- What is egalitarianism? -- Choice, circumstance, and the value of equality -- Is terrorism morally distinctive? -- Immigration and the significance of culture -- The normativity of tradition -- The good of toleration.