This editorial introduces the Journal of Consciousness Studies special issue on "Animal Consciousness". The 15 contributors and co-editors answer the question "How should we study animal consciousness scientifically?" in 500 words or fewer.

Gallant hero of romantic film, who has just killed his equally gallant antagonist in a duel: ‘Was I wrong, father?’ Father : ‘You were both wrong; and you were both right, too.’ David Hume, speaking of moral sceptics, once said ‘And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder opinions‘. I am guilty of an (...) inconsistency of some kind in quoting the above passage from Hume with approval for, though everything Hume wrote ought to be quoted with approval, it is inconsistent to approve of advice, and then immediately to disregard it. I am also guilty of an inconsistency of another kind. Once upon a time I myself defended a version of moral scepticism, but I can say in mitigation of this deplorable act that my tongue was partly in my cheek at the time, which is where one's tongue should be on the occasion of addressing the Joint Session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society. (shrink)

Professor Körner's Experience and Conduct , like many other notable entities, is divided into three parts. Part I contains accounts of what Körner calls factual and constructive logic, some remarks on the logic of maxims and their consistency and adequacy, a chapter on probabilistic thinking, and another on preference theory. Part II contains chapters on the logic of action, on attitudes, upon the distinction between regulative and evaluative standards of conduct, on morality, justice, welfare, prudence, legality, and what Körner calls (...) ‘idealizations’. Part III, on the epistemology and metaphysics of practical thinking, contains chapters on rationality, evidence, moral pluralism and a final chapter on moral guidance. The amount of guidance one gets from this last chapter is, as one might expect, small. (shrink)

Jonathan Harrison teases our minds with two short stories ….

After a preliminary discussion of the extent to which belief is voluntary, The author goes on to consider whether it can be our duty to induce belief. He considers the question whether we have a duty to believe that there is a God in relation to the more general question whether we have a duty to do what is right (what is objectively right), Or a duty to do merely what we think is right (what is subjectively right). He concludes (...) that we cannot have a duty to believe either what is true, Or to believe what we think is true, And so that we do not have a duty to believe that there is a god. (shrink)

People unacquainted with moral philosophy suppose that its business is to tell us the difference between right and wrong. Many moral philosophers, unfortunately, seem to agree with them, to the extent, at any rate, of taking it for granted that there is some one divison of actions into two classes, which division is of some especial or even unique significance. Actions, they have supposed, are either right or wrong. If they are right, then they must and ought to be done, (...) and to do them is our duty. If they are wrong, then they must not and ought not to be done, and it is our duty not to do them. If we do what is right, and do this because it is right, and not just because it suits us, then we have performed a morally good action, and we deserve praise or commendation. If we have done something which is wrong, then we have performed a morally bad action, and deserveblame, and possibly punishment. Finally, a man manifests his moral goodness by performing, from a sense of duty, those actions which belong to the first class, and omitting those which belong to the second class; since there are no other ways in which actions may be classified morally, he has ample oppo tunity for exercising his talents, and the morally good man, or the conscientious man, or the dutiful man, becomes the archetype of what a man ought to be. (shrink)

I shall define a free action as one a man is able to do. Various things limit a man's freedom. The most unpopular is the government, or other people who have the power of preventing us from doing what we want. But our freedom is also circumscribed by lack of physical and mental strength or skill, including that of knowing how to manage other human beings. Other factors limiting our freedom are our ignorance, our passions and our habits. Some men (...) say they value their freedom from these things, especially their freedom from passion, so much that they would prefer to be in prison or on the rack rather than be a slave to them, but one suspects they exaggerate. (shrink)

A Treatise of Human Nature was published between 1739 and 1740. Book I, entitled Of the Understanding, contains Hume's epistemology, i.e., his account of the manner in which we acquire knowledge in general, its justification (to the extent that he thought it could be justified), and its limits. Book II, entitled Of the Passions, expounds most of what could be called Hume's philosophy of psychology in general, and his moral psychology (including discussions of the problem of the freedom of the (...) will and the rationality of action) in particular. Book III, entitled Of Morals, is also divided into three parts. Part II of Book III, entitled Of justice and injustice, is the subject of the present volume. In it Hume attempts to give an empiricist theory of justice. He rejects the view, approximated to in varying degrees by Cumberland, Cudworth, Locke, Clarke, Wollaston, and Butler, that justice is something natural and part of the nature of things, and that its edicts are eternal and immutable, and discernible by reason. Hume maintains, on the contrary, as did Hobbes and Mandeville, that justice is a matter of observing rules or conventions which are of human invention, and that, in consequence, our acquiring a knowledge of justice is an empirical affair of ascertaining what these rules or conventions are. (shrink)

Gallant hero of romantic film, who has just killed his equally gallant antagonist in a duel: ‘Was I wrong, father?’ Father : ‘You were both wrong; and you were both right, too.’ David Hume, speaking of moral sceptics, once said ‘And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder opinions‘. I am guilty of an (...) inconsistency of some kind in quoting the above passage from Hume with approval for, though everything Hume wrote ought to be quoted with approval, it is inconsistent to approve of advice, and then immediately to disregard it. I am also guilty of an inconsistency of another kind. Once upon a time I myself defended a version of moral scepticism, but I can say in mitigation of this deplorable act that my tongue was partly in my cheek at the time, which is where one's tongue should be on the occasion of addressing the Joint Session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society. (shrink)

Jonathan Harrison teases our minds with two short stories ….

Jonathan Harrison; XII—A Philosopher's Nightmare or the Ghost Not Laid, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 67, Issue 1, 1 June 1967, Pages 179–188.

Jonathan Harrison; III*—The Embodiment of Mind or What Use is Having a Body?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 74, Issue 1, 1 June 1974, Pages 35.

Jonathan Harrison; IX*—If I Know, I Cannot Be Wrong, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 79, Issue 1, 1 June 1979, Pages 137–150, https://doi.org/10.

Jonathan Harrison; IX—The Third Dimension, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 61, Issue 1, 1 June 1961, Pages 151–168, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

Jonathan Harrison; IX—The Third Dimension, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 61, Issue 1, 1 June 1961, Pages 151–168, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

Published in 1999, this text offers a comprehensive treatment of the Philosophy of Religion. Its overall conclusions are that, though there is no reason to suppose there is a God, doing something that is not quite believing in god, who, as some mystics think - neither exists nor does not exist, may be valuable for some people.

As a result of thinking (pace Tarski, wrongly) that it is propositions, not sentences, that are true or false, it has been supposed (also wrongly) that propositions such as that ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white are necessarily true. But changing the rules for the use of the words in a sentence has no effect on the truth of the proposition, only on what proposition it formulates. Many similar statements, e.g., that ‘plus’ does not (...) mean plus, are only pragmatically contradictory: if this were true, it would be impossible to say so in these words. One should distinguish between sentences that express necessary truths, and sentences that necessarily express truths. It follows that many well known accounts of necessity are wrong, that the truth of an analytic proposition does not follow from the definitions of the words in the sentence that expresses it, that it is not helpful to define meaning in terms of truth, that truth is not relative to language, and that conventionalism is false. This paper is a move in the direction of establishing the eternity of truth. (shrink)