Professor Flew's vigorous and interesting paper, “The Justification of Punishment,” in PHILOSOPHY for October 1954 discusses my article on Punishment in Mind for April 1939. It merits some rejoinder. Flew's paper ranges far beyond the particular issue of punishment, and much of what is most interesting in it has this wider relevance. I, too, therefore shall use punishment as a peg on which to hang some discussion of the wider problems of ethics.

I propose to consider in this paper some points concerning the part played by reason in non-moral conduct. The place of reason in ethics is a separate issue with which I shall not be directly concerned.

Berkeley is commonly regarded as an idealist whose system is saved from subjectivism only by the advent of a God more violently ex machina than the God of any other philosopher. I hope to show that this accusation rests on a misunderstanding of his central theory, a misunderstanding which gives God a place both inconsistent with his main premisses and useless in his system. I hope also to display by quotation the real Berkeley, whose theory of God's place and nature (...) is directly supported by argument and consistent with his premisses, and makes a system which, if it is less than a completely coherent philosophy, is more than an episcopal assumption. (shrink)

This paper contains the substance of a lecture delivered to the Institute under the title in November 1947. It is now published in Philosophyon the suggestion of members of the audience at that lecture.

In the Metaphysics , Aristotle examines the various meanings of concludes that its proper and primary meaning is “that which has predicates and is not predicated of anything else.” My aim in this paper is to accept this as an account of the notion of “substance,” and to free it from confusion with other notions, and then to consider whether when it is thus freed any “problem of substance” remains. I shall illustrate from the classical treatments of the subject both (...) the confusions and the development of a clearer view because it has seemed to me that exposition and criticism of those authorities sometimes show the same obscurities as the authorities themselves. (shrink)

A recent letter to the Press counselled caution on the return of the German colonies on the grounds that Germany was a notoriously ungrateful nation. A few years after we presented Heligoland to her, the Kruger telegram showed her ready to encourage our enemies. Why should we now make her further gifts which would merely render more effective similar treachery? Clearly behaviour like this by an individual would warrant such an attitude. If I give a man a present on Monday (...) and on Tuesday he stabs me in the back. (shrink)

‘All the difficulties in the theory of forms arise from their separation.’ This recurrent criticism of Aristotle's is, of course, one of the principal obstacles in the way of any reconstruction of the Platonic metaphysic. To begin with, it is flatly denied by Plato himself in the use of such words as μέθεξις, παρoυσία and κoινωνία. It must also be rejected by the orthodox account of the Forms which takes them to be immanent, constitutive principles in the world of everyday (...) life, like a Law of Nature or the Concrete Universal of Hegel. Finally, modern philosophy has made it clear that this view of universals is right and necessary if thought and language are to exist, and it is therefore tempting to attribute it to Plato. (shrink)

Originally published in 1966, this introduction to moral philosophy examines the philosophical basis of moral problems and considers some of the crucial arguments that attempt to define or dispense with a moral justification of events. Some of the questions discussed are whether moral rules are justified and whether there is any positive evidence that man has free will.

Originally published in 1966, this introduction to moral philosophy examines the philosophical basis of moral problems and considers some of the crucial arguments that attempt to define or dispense with a moral justification of events. Some of the questions discussed are whether moral rules are justified and whether there is any positive evidence that man has free will.

First published in 1948, The State and the Citizen traces the development of the idea of the State as the ultimate source of authority. The author then proceeds to suggest the proper ends and limitation of State action. He analyses the conceptions of State unity and corporate loyalty and ends with a discussion on the relations between States and other associations, and between one State and another. This short and lucid introduction to political philosophy is an essential read for students (...) and scholars of political philosophy, philosophy, and political studies. (shrink)