Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable (...) if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. (shrink)

Market models are indeed indispensable to understanding the evolution of cooperation and its emotional substrates. Unfortunately, Baumard et al. eschew market thinking in stressing the supposed invariance of moral/cooperative behavior across circumstances. To the contrary, humans display contingent morality/cooperation, and these shifts are best accounted for by market models of partner choice for mutually beneficial collaboration.

By consequentialism, I mean the position that actions are right or wrong insofar as they affect the happiness, preferences, etc., of some class of sentient beings, usually humans. Consequentialism specifies a fairly narrow range of properties as being the determining factors in regard to actions being right or wrong. Each action has properties other than how it affects the happiness preferences, etc., of humans. According to consequentialism, the kind of action it is, the motivation behind the action, and other consequences, (...) for instance, the consequence of having broken a promise, are not relevant to the question of whether an action is right or wrong. (shrink)

The perceived support of supernatural agents has been historically, ethnographically, and theoretically linked with confidence in engaging in violent intergroup conflict. However, scant experimental investigations of such links have been reported to date, and the extant evidence derives largely from indirect laboratory methods of limited ecological validity. Here, we experimentally tested the hypothesis that perceived supernatural aid would heighten inclinations toward coalitional aggression using a realistic simulated coalitional combat paradigm: competitive team paintball. In a between-subjects design, US paintball players recruited (...) for the study were experimentally primed with thoughts of supernatural support using a guided visualization exercise analogous to prayer, or with a control visualization of a nature scene. The participants then competed in a team paintball battle game modeled after “Capture the Flag.” Immediately before and after the battle, participants completed surveys assessing confidence in their coalitional and personal battle performance. Participants assessed their coalition’s prospects of victory and performance more positively after visualizing supernatural aid. Participants primed with supernatural support also reported inflated assessments of their own performance. Importantly, however, covarying increases in assessments of their overall coalition’s performance accounted for the latter effect. This study provided support for the hypothesis that perceived supernatural support can heighten both prospective confidence in coalitional victory and retrospective confidence in the combat performance of one’s team, while highlighting the role of competitive play in evoking the coalitional psychology of intergroup conflict. These results accord with and extend convergent prior findings derived from laboratory paradigms far removed from the experience of combat. Accordingly, the field study approach utilized here shows promise as a method for investigating coalitional battle dynamics in a realistic, experientially immersive manner. (shrink)

There are two principles often found in environmental ethics – self-realisation and environmental preservation. I argue that these are two logically independent principles. An analysis of its essential features shows that the preservation principle should be based on actual consequentialism, for it is only the actual effects of our actions and policies that are important to the main issues of environmental preservation. Aldo Leopold's land ethic is found to be an example of a consequentialistic theory of environmental preservation.

Daniel Holbrook is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Washington State University. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Iowa in 1987. Publications include a book on utilitarianism and papers on ethical theory, environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, animal rights, and philosophy of mind.

This text offers an interpretation of John Stuart Mill's ethical theory, Qualitatively-Hedonistic Utilitarianism, as well as a discussion, analysis and solution of problems that have arisen in the theory since the initial publication of Utilitarianism in 1861.

In his "Meditations on First Philosophy", Descartes argues for there being a radical difference between mind and body. Yet, we know that mind and body interest. How is this possible? Descartes's answer tothis question is that human nature is a "substantial union" of mind and body. In this essay, Descartes's solution is explained and critically examined.

The focus here is the question of the moral status of viable human embryos for the first few days of their existence. More precisely, my focus is the human embryo from its conception, through its becoming a mass of undifferentiated cells, to its first differentiation when the initial stem cell mass appears. Naturally, this would occur in the first week of the embryo’s existence, whether in vitro (in a laboratory) or in vivo (in the uterine tubes or uterus). With cryogenics, (...) the process can be frozen at any stage. In this essay, I identify four categories of human embryos and argue that differences between these categories support the view that embryos are not all equal in terms of their moral status, which, in turn, supports the legitimacy of some medical and research procedures that put embryos at risk. (shrink)

The focus here is the question of the moral status of viable human embryos for the first few days of their existence. More precisely, my focus is the human embryo from its conception, through its becoming a mass of undifferentiated cells, to its first differentiation when the initial stem cell mass appears. Naturally, this would occur in the first week of the embryo’s existence, whether in vitro (in a laboratory) or in vivo (in the uterine tubes or uterus). With cryogenics, (...) the process can be frozen at any stage. In this essay, I identify four categories of human embryos and argue that differences between these categories support the view that embryos are not all equal in terms of their moral status, which, in turn, supports the legitimacy of some medical and research procedures that put embryos at risk. (shrink)

The focus here is the question of the moral status of viable human embryos for the first few days of their existence. More precisely, my focus is the human embryo from its conception, through its becoming a mass of undifferentiated cells, to its first differentiation when the initial stem cell mass appears. Naturally, this would occur in the first week of the embryo’s existence, whether in vitro or in vivo. With cryogenics, the process can be frozen at any stage. In (...) this essay, I identify four categories of human embryos and argue that differences between these categories support the view that embryos are not all equal in terms of their moral status, which, in turn, supports the legitimacy of some medical and research procedures that put embryos at risk. (shrink)

Topic Read 01. Jan 09 Introduction/Pretest/Critical Thinking 02. Jan 11 Ethical Theory Homepage 03. Jan 16 More about Ethical Theory 04. Jan 18 Euthanasia CC-2 05. Jan 23 More about Euthanasia CC-4 06. Jan 25 Birth Defects CC-9 07. Jan 30 Euthanasia/Birth Defects Symposium 08. Feb 01 Animals as Research Subjects CC-10 09. Feb 06 More about Animals as Research Subjects 10. Feb 08 Humans as Research Subjects CC-11 11. Feb 13 Organ/Tissue Donation & Xenografts CC-13/14 12. Feb 15 Research (...) Symposium 13. Feb 20 MID-TERM EXAM 14. Feb 22 Sexual Orientation/Discrimination 15. Feb 27 Human Sexuality/Sexual Ethics Homepage 16. Mar 01 Human Sexuality Symposium 17. Mar 06 Pharmaceuticals & Empiricism 18. Mar 08 Recreational Drugs 19. Mar 20 HIV/AIDS CC-17 20. Mar 22 Contraception 21. Mar 27 Drugs/AIDS Symposium 22. Mar 29 Abortion CC-5 23. Apr 03 More about Abortion 24. Apr 05 Abortion Symposium 25. Apr 10 Assisted Reproduction CC-6 26. Apr 12 Cloning and Stem Cell Research CC-7/8 27. Apr 17 Cloning and Stem Cell Research Symposium 28. Apr 19 LATE-TERM EXAM 29. Apr 24 Medicare/HMO CC-18 30. Apr 26 Medicare/HMO Symposium.. (shrink)

We question whether the postulated revenge and forgiveness systems constitute true adaptations. Revenge and forgiveness are the products of multiple motivational systems and capacities, many of which did not exclusively evolve to support deterrence. Anger is more aptly construed as an adaptation that organizes independent mechanisms to deter transgressors than as the mediator of a distinct revenge adaptation.

Certain researchers in the field of moral psychology, following Turiel, argue that children and adults in different cultures make a distinction between moral and conventional transgressions. One interpretation of the theory holds that moral transgressions elicit a signature moral response pattern while conventional transgressions elicit a signature conventional response pattern. Four dimensions distinguish the moral response pattern from the conventional response pattern. 1. HARM/JUSTICE/RIGHTS – Subjects justify the wrongness of moral transgressions by stating that they involve a victim that is (...) harmed, whose rights have been violated or who has been subject to an injustice. Conventional transgressions do not involve a victim that is harmed, whose rights have been violated or who has been subject to an injustice. 2. AUTHORITY – Subjects judge moral transgressions as wrong independent of structures of authority while the wrongness of conventional transgressions can be changed by an authority. 3. GENERALIZABILITY – Subjects judge moral transgressions as generalizably wrong, i.e., independent of time and place, while conventional transgressions’ wrongness depends on time and place. 4. SERIOUSNESS – Subjects judge moral transgressions as more seriously wrong than conventional transgressions. Others have criticized this view for a diversity of reasons. Relevant for our purposes is that, first, there appear to be cultural differences in what constitutes a moral transgression and second, it is unclear what the exact hypotheses are, surrounding this supposed moral/conventional distinction. I will present planned and ongoing experimental research that investigates two specific problems we encountered in the moral-conventional literature. First of all, we cannot draw reliable conclusions from previous work about the generalizability of the wrongness of different kinds of transgressions. In previous experiments, differences in time and place are often but not always confounded with a variety of other differences. For example, Huebner et al. ask participants if the depicted act would be OK for someone who lived elsewhere where everyone else did this. Moreover, when varying time and/or place, participants are likely to assume that other things differ as well. In our study, we vary time and/or place in a variety of scenarios in order to investigate what assumptions participants make when confronted with the generalizability question. Second, it is an open question as to what extent any transgression will universally elicit one of the two signature response patterns. In our study, we make use of existing differences in participants’ value hierarchy to test this. For one and the same scenario, we compare the response of participants for whom authority is an important value with the results of participants for whom authority is not an important value, in order to see if there are differences in the two groups’ response patterns. References: Haidt J., Koller S. & Dias M. 1993. Affect, culture and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65:613-628. Huebner B., Lee, J.L. & Hauser, M.D. 2010. The Moral-Conventional Distinction in Mature Moral Competence. Journal of Cognition and Culture 10: 1-26. Kelly D., Stich S., Haley K.J., Eng S.J. & Fessler D.M.T. 2007. Harm, Affect, and the Moral/Conventional Distinction. Mind & Language 22:117-131. Nichols S. 2004. Sentimental Rules: on the Natural Foundations of Moral Judgment. Oxford University Press. Stich S., Fessler, D.M.T. & Kelly D. 2009. On the Morality of Harm: A response to Sousa, Holbrook and Piazza. Cognition 113:93-97. Turiel E. 1983. The Development of Social Knowledge. Morality & Convention. Cambridge University Press. (shrink)

J Britt Holbrook - Lyotard and Greek Thought: Sophistry - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 676-677 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by J. Britt Holbrook University of North Texas Keith Crome. Lyotard and Greek Thought: Sophistry. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. x + 186. Cloth, $68.00. Caveat lector: this deceptively short work presents an exercise in genre-bending that may leave one's head spinning, particularly if one's acquaintance (...) with the thought of Jean-François Lyotard is not quite up to snuff. One may perhaps take the appearance of such a work—written by a Lyotard scholar for Lyotard scholars—as a sign that Lyotard has finally arrived... (shrink)

v. 1. A-D -- v. 2. E-K -- v. 3. L-R -- v. 4. S-Z.

A pioneering work in the philosophy of mind, Content and Consciousness brings together the approaches of philosophers and scientists to the mind--a connection that must occur if genuine analysis of the mind is to be made. This unified approach permits the most forbiddingly mysterious mental phenomenon--consciousness--to be broken down into several distinct phenomena, and these are each given a foundation in the physical activity of the brain. This paperback edition contains a preface placing the book in the context of recent (...) work in the area. (shrink)

In this book by the award-winning author of Just Healthcare, Norman Daniels develops a comprehensive theory of justice for health that answers three key questions: what is the special moral importance of health? When are health inequalities unjust? How can we meet health needs fairly when we cannot meet them all? Daniels' theory has implications for national and global health policy: can we meet health needs fairly in ageing societies? Or protect health in the workplace while respecting individual liberty? Or (...) meet professional obligations and obligations of justice without conflict? When is an effort to reduce health disparities, or to set priorities in realising a human right to health, fair? What do richer, healthier societies owe poorer, sicker societies? Just Health: Meeting Health Needs Fairly explores the many ways that social justice is good for the health of populations in developed and developing countries. (shrink)

In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the relation of consciousness, the will, and our intentional and voluntary actions. Wegner claims that our experience and common sense view according to which we can influence our behavior roughly the way we experience that we do it is an illusion.

The _Physics_ is a foundational work of western philosophy, and the crucial one for understanding Aristotle's views on matter, form, essence, causation, movement, space, and time. This richly annotated, scrupulously accurate, and consistent translation makes it available to a contemporary English reader as no other does—in part because it fits together seamlessly with other closely associated works in the New Hackett Aristotle series, such as the _Metaphysics_, _De Anima_, and forthcoming _De Caelo_ and _On Coming to Be and Passing Away_. (...) Eventually the series will include all of Aristotle's works. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index of Terms indicates places where focused discussion of key notions occurs. An illuminating general Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what sort of work it is and what sorts of evidence it relies on. (shrink)

How should medical services be distributed within society? Who should pay for them? Is it right that large amounts should be spent on sophisticated technology and expensive operations, or would the resources be better employed in, for instance, less costly preventive measures? These and others are the questions addreses in this book. Norman Daniels examines some of the dilemmas thrown up by conflicting demands for medical attention, and goes on to advance a theory of justice in the distribution of health (...) care. The central argument is that health care, both preventive and acute, has a crucial effect on equality of opportunity, and that a principle guaranteeing equality of opportunity must underly the distribution of health-care services. Access to care, preventive measures, treatment of the elderly, and the obligations of doctors and medical administrations are fully discussed, and the theory is shown to underwrite various practical policies in the area. (shrink)

Reasoning about situations we take to be impossible is useful for a variety of theoretical purposes. Furthermore, using a device of impossible worlds when reasoning about the impossible is useful in the same sorts of ways that the device of possible worlds is useful when reasoning about the possible. This paper discusses some of the uses of impossible worlds and argues that commitment to them can and should be had without great metaphysical or logical cost. The paper then provides an (...) account of reasoning with impossible worlds, by treating such reasoning as reasoning employing counterpossible conditionals, and provides a semantics for the proposed treatment. (shrink)

Précis for a book symposium, with contributions from Meg Wallace, Louis deRosset, and Chris Tillman and Joshua Spencer.

Our ability to locate moral responsibility is often thought to be a necessary condition for conducting morally permissible medical practice, engaging in a just war, and other high-stakes endeavors. Yet, with increasing reliance upon artificially intelligent systems, we may be facing a wideningresponsibility gap, which, some argue, cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility. How then, if at all, can we make use of crucial emerging technologies? According to Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach, the advent of so-called ‘artificial moral (...) agents’ (AMAs) is inevitable. Still, this notion may seem to push back the problem, leaving those who have an interest in developing autonomous technology with a dilemma. We may need to scale-back our efforts at deploying AMAs (or at least maintain human oversight); otherwise, we must rapidly and drastically update our moral and legal norms in a way that ensures responsibility for potentially avoidable harms. This paper invokes contemporary accounts of responsibility in order to show how artificially intelligent systems might be held responsible. Although many theorists are concerned enough to develop artificial conceptions ofagencyor to exploit our present inability to regulate valuable innovations, the proposal here highlights the importance of—and outlines a plausible foundation for—a workable notion ofartificial moral responsibility. (shrink)

This essay argues that political, economic, and cultural developments have made the twentieth century disciplinary approach to philosophy unsustainable. It (a) discusses the reasons behind this unsustainability, which also affect the academy at large, (b) describes applied philosophy as an inadequate theoretical reaction to contemporary societal pressures, and (c) proposes a dedisciplined and interstitial approach??field philosophy??as a better response to the challenges facing the twenty-first century philosophy.

One of the world’s leading philosophers offers aspiring thinkers his personal trove of mind-stretching thought experiments. Over a storied career, Daniel C. Dennett has engaged questions about science and the workings of the mind. His answers have combined rigorous argument with strong empirical grounding. And a lot of fun. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking offers seventy-seven of Dennett’s most successful "imagination-extenders and focus-holders" meant to guide you through some of life’s most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, mind, (...) and free will. With patience and wit, Dennett deftly deploys his thinking tools to gain traction on these thorny issues while offering readers insight into how and why each tool was built. Alongside well-known favorites like Occam’s Razor and reductio ad absurdum lie thrilling descriptions of Dennett’s own creations: Trapped in the Robot Control Room, Beware of the Prime Mammal, and The Wandering Two-Bitser. Ranging across disciplines as diverse as psychology, biology, computer science, and physics, Dennett’s tools embrace in equal measure light-heartedness and accessibility as they welcome uninitiated and seasoned readers alike. As always, his goal remains to teach you how to "think reliably and even gracefully about really hard questions." A sweeping work of intellectual seriousness that’s also studded with impish delights, Intuition Pumps offers intrepid thinkers—in all walks of life—delicious opportunities to explore their pet ideas with new powers. (shrink)

In this paper I will present a puzzle about epistemic akrasia, and I will use that puzzle to motivate accepting some non-standard views about the nature of epistemological judgment. The puzzle is that while it seems obvious that epistemic akrasia must be irrational, the claim that epistemic akrasia is always irrational amounts to the claim that a certain sort of justified false belief—a justified false belief about what one ought to believe—is impossible. But justified false beliefs seem to be possible (...) in any domain, and it’s hard to see why beliefs about what one ought to believe should be an exception. I will argue that when we get clearer about what sort of psychological state epistemic akrasia is, we can resolve the puzzle in favor of the intuitive view that epistemic akrasia is always irrational. (shrink)