In Marquis's recent paper he has not satisfactorily shown that killing does not adversely affect the victim's present self-represented desires for their future. Marquis is correct in believing life and death are distinct, but living and dying are not. In fact, to use a well-known saying, “the second we are born we start to die”. During the process of dying, whether it be long as in over our lifetime or short as in as we are being killed, there comes a (...) point when the present realistic desires we have we know will never be satisfied. This is why killing can be wrong. This would imply killing an unconscious person, infant, or fetus cannot be wrong. But such killing can be wrong, despite the person killed not experiencing the desire not to be killed as he was dying. Killing can be wrong because others can have a present self-represented desire for that person not to be killed to have been killed. If this line of reasoning is correct, then the “best interests” principle often applied to life and death considerations regarding unconscious persons, infants, and fetuses, is invalid, as such human beings do not have present desires. All that matters is what relevant others rationally desire, after being informed of the facts and the consequences, for that unconscious person, infant or fetus. (shrink)

The appreciation of nature and natural beauty demands our attention as environmental issues become ever more urgent. In this timely introduction, Glenn Parsons provides an overview of philosophical work on the aesthetics of nature, identifying key conceptual questions, clarifying central theories, and analyzing the ethical ramifications of our experience of natural beauty. Outlining five major approaches to understanding the aesthetic value of nature, this second edition explores the aesthetic appreciation of nature as it occurs in wilderness, in gardens, and (...) in the context of appreciating environmental art. Now updated to cover recent developments in the field, it includes: · A new chapter on the sublime, the picturesque, and the beautiful · Expanded discussion of empirical and evolutionary accounts of nature appreciation, as well as the appreciation of the environment in non-Western cultures · A new chapter on the aesthetic appreciation of animals · An in-depth analysis of the appreciation of nature through cinema and photography · Discussion of the relation between environmental appreciation and climate change __ Combining a clear and engaging style with a sophisticated treatment of a fascinating subject, _Aesthetics and Nature_ explores the aesthetic dimension of humanity's relationship with our physical surroundings. This a must-read for anyone who cares about nature and the future of our environment. (shrink)

We aim to build intelligent systems which can reason autonomously about the carcinogenicity of chemicals. Scientific debates in this area draw on evidence from multiple, and often conflicting sources, both theoretical and experimental, and participants use various modes of inferential reasoning. In seeking to automate such reasoning, we have first articulated precisely the multiple modes of inference used when an assertion of human carcinogenicity is made from experimental animal evidence. Because such inferences are often contested, scientific debate in this domain (...) can be vigorous. To model such debates, we propose the use of a form of dialectical argumentation, drawing on Habermas' philosophy of Discourse Ethics [9] and Pera's philosophy of science [18]. The resulting formalism permits the representation of uncertainty and disagreement regarding the modes of inference used, as well as the claims being asserted. (shrink)

Ntroduction : Christianity, Christ, and Machiavelli's The prince -- Christianity's siren song -- Christ's defective political foundations -- Hope is not enough -- The prince of war -- Machiavelli's unchristian virtue -- Christ's ruinous political legacy -- The harrowing redemption of Italy -- Conclusion : Machiavelli's gospel.

This study reports the results of a survey designed to assess the impact of business education on the ethical beliefs of business students. The study examines the beliefs of graduate and undergraduate students about ethical behavior in educational settings. The investigation indicates that the behavior which students learn or perceive is required to succeed in business schools may run counter to the ethical sanctions of society and the business community.

The evolutionary theory of artefact proper function holds that an artefact’s proper function is that effect which explains the reproduction of past instances of the artefact type. This theory has many sources but received its clearest presentation in Beth Preston’s essay “Why Is a Wing Like a Spoon?”. More recently, Preston has raised an objection to the theory, based on the phenomenon of ‘phantom functions’: these are functions that an artefact type is unable to perform, but which nonetheless apparently constitute (...) its proper function. Deflecting qi energy, for example, is the proper function of feng shui mirrors, even though no feng shui mirror is able to do this. Preston concludes that the existence of phantom functions refutes the evolutionary theory of artefact proper function. In this paper, the evolutionary theory is defended, by arguing that it can adequately account for phantom function cases. (shrink)

The Protestant ethic — a moral code stressing hard work, rigorous self-discipline, and the organization of one's life in the service of God — was made famous by sociologist and political economist Max Weber. In this brilliant study (his best-known and most controversial), he opposes the Marxist concept of dialectical materialism and its view that change takes place through "the struggle of opposites." Instead, he relates the rise of a capitalist economy to the Puritan determination to work out anxiety over (...) salvation or damnation by performing good deeds — an effort that ultimately discouraged belief in predestination and encouraged capitalism. Weber's classic study has long been required reading in college and advanced high school social studies classrooms. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Mothers on Baby Beauty Good Mom, Bad Critic? Beauty, Love, and Prejudice Notes.

The transcendental aesthetic -- Arithmetic and the categories -- Remarks on pure natural science -- Two studies in the reception of Kant's philosophy of arithmetic: postscript to part I -- Some remarks on Frege's conception of extension -- Postscript to essay 5 -- Frege's correspondence: postscript to essay 6 -- Brentano on judgment and truth -- Husserl and the linguistic turn.

You don't always have to learn the hard way. On the spur of the moment, the morning after the birth of one of his grandchildren, Rob Parsons wrote the baby a letter. And then Rob began to think about how he hoped he'd have the chance to talk with all his grandchildren as they grew. He imagined them coming into his study, settling into one of the two comfy armchairs in front of the fire and opening up about the (...) challenges they were facing. Perhaps it would be when they were beginning their first job, buying their first house, getting married or starting a family. Or perhaps they'd talk long into the night, when their hearts were broken or friends had betrayed them. Perhaps he would have the chance to help them rebuild the dream that somebody had trodden on. 'Come on in, take a seat - tell me what's been going on...' Rob knew he wouldn't have all the answers. But maybe he could help - just a little. (shrink)

Copernican questions, 2006 ; It started with Copernicus, 2014 -- Copernican questions. What was Copernicus's revolution? ; What happens when your world changes? ; Copernican questions : rationality and realism ; The plan of the book -- Is science really rational? : the problem of incommensurability. Incommensurability of standards ; Incommensurability of values ; Incommensurability of meaning ; Evaluating meaning incommensurability ; Conversion : a concluding case study -- A walk on the wild side : social constructivism, postmodernism, feminism, and (...) that old-time religion. The constructivist challenge ; Postmodernism attacks! ; Is "objectivity" what a man calls his subjectivity? ; Is science godless? -- Ascending the slippery slope : scientific progress and truth. The evils of Whig history ; Social-constructivist history ; Does science converge toward truth? ; Assessing Laudan's Critique of Convergent Realism ; Scientists' own realism ; Could we be wrong about everything? -- Truth of consequences? Electrons : real particles or convenient fictions? ; Van Fraassen's constrictive empiricism ; Do we observe through microscopes? ; But what about things that are really unobservable? ; So what really is the goal of science? -- Mysteries of methods. Induction and deduction ; Aristotle : the first methodologist ; Bacon : scientific method renovated? ; The hypothetico-deductive method ; Hume on induction ; Popper and the rejection of induction ; Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) to the rescue? -- If you have science, who needs philosophy? The limits of science? ; The breakdown of philosophy ; Naturalizing epistemology ; Naturalizing ethics ; Philosophy in an age of science -- Science, scientism, and being human. Mind : physical or spiritual? ; Science and the human image ; Ape, angel, or neither? (shrink)

Large-scale sequencing tests, including whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing, are rapidly moving into clinical use. Sequencing is already being used clinically to identify therapeutic opportunities for cancer patients who have run out of conventional treatment options, to help diagnose children with puzzling neurodevelopmental conditions, and to clarify appropriate drug choices and dosing in individuals. To evaluate and support clinical applications of these technologies, the National Human Genome Research Institute and National Cancer Institute have funded studies on clinical and research sequencing under (...) the Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research program as well as studies on return of results. Most of these studies use sequencing in real-world clinical settings and collect data on both the application of sequencing and the impact of receiving genomic findings on study participants. They are occurring in the context of controversy over how to obtain consent for exome and genome sequencing. (shrink)

Terence Parsons presents a new study of the development and continuing value of medieval logic, which expanded Aristotle's basic principles of logic in important ways. Parsons argues that the resulting system is as rich as contemporary first-order symbolic logic.

Peter Geach describes the 'doctrine of distribution' as the view that a term is distributed if it refers to everything that it denotes, and undistributed if it refers to only some of the things that it denotes. He argues that the notion, so explained, is incoherent. He claims that the doctrine of distribution originates from a degenerate use of the notion of ?distributive supposition? in medieval supposition theory sometime in the 16th century. This paper proposes instead that the doctrine of (...) distribution occurs at least as early as the 12th century, and that it originates from a study of Aristotle's notion of a term's being ?taken universally?, and not from the much later theory of distributive supposition. A detailed version of the doctrine found in the Port Royal Logic is articulated, and compared with a slightly different modern version. Finally, Geach's arguments for the incoherence of the doctrine are discussed and rejected. (shrink)

Advancements and deployments of AI-based systems, especially Deep Learning-driven generative language models, have accomplished impressive results over the past few years. Nevertheless, these remarkable achievements are intertwined with a related fear that such technologies might lead to a general relinquishing of our lives’s control to AIs. This concern, which also motivates the increasing interest in the eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) research field, is mostly caused by the opacity of the output of deep learning systems and the way that it is (...) generated, which is largely obscure to laypeople. A dialectical interaction with such systems may enhance the users’ understanding and build a more robust trust towards AI. Commonly employed as specific formalisms for modelling intra-agent communications, dialogue games prove to be useful tools to rely upon when dealing with user’s explanation needs. The literature already offers some dialectical protocols that expressly handle explanations and their delivery. This paper fully formalises the novel Explanation–Question–Response (EQR) dialogue and its properties, whose main purpose is to provide satisfactory information (i.e., justified according to argumentative semantics) whilst ensuring a simplified protocol, in comparison with other existing approaches, for humans and artificial agents. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

This study examines the history of the psychoanalytic theory of mysticism, starting with the seminal correspondence between Freud and Romain Rolland concerning the concept of "oceanic feeling." Providing a corrective to current views which frame psychoanalysis as pathologizing mysticism, Parsons reveals the existence of three models entertained by Freud and Rolland: the classical reductive, ego-adaptive, and transformational. Then, reconstructing Rolland's personal mysticism through texts and letters unavailable to Freud, Parsons argues that Freud misinterpreted the oceanic feeling. In offering (...) a fresh interpretation of Rolland's mysticism, Parsons constructs a new dialogical approach for psychoanalytic theory of mysticism which integrates culture studies, developmental perspectives, and the deep epistemological and transcendent claims of the mystics. (shrink)

Neil Tennant and Joseph Salerno have recently attempted to rigorously formalize Michael Dummett's argument for logical revision. Surprisingly, both conclude that Dummett commits elementary logical errors, and hence fails to offer an argument that is even prima facie valid. After explicating the arguments Salerno and Tennant attribute to Dummett, I show how broader attention to Dummett's writings on the theory of meaning allows one to discern, and formalize, a valid argument for logical revision. Then, after correctly providing a rigorous statement (...) of the argument, I am able to delineate four possible anti-Dummettian responses. Following recent work by Stewart Shapiro and Crispin Wright, I conclude that progress in the anti-realist's dialectic requires greater clarity about the key modal notions used in Dummett's proof. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.1 (2001) 59-79 [Access article in PDF] Money and Sovereignty in Early Modern France Jotham Parsons [The mint official] must above all seek integrity in the moneys, on which our features are imprinted and on which the general good depends. For what would be safe if our image were offended, and if that which a subject ought to venerate in his heart (...) were immediately violated by a sacrilegious hand? 1Early modern French commentators on money and monetary policy were fond of quoting this very late antique chancery formula; 2 it even appears in the epigraph to one unpublished commonplace book on the subject from the early seventeenth century. 3 Its popularity was no doubt due partly to the fact that classical literature contained few other theoretical statements on the practicalities of issuing money. 4 It also showed how deeply classical humanism had shaped economic thought, as it had done to all of French political culture. This was apparent as early as 1514 in Guillaume Budé's scholarly classic, De Asse et partibus ejus. 5 By 1600 these influences had ensconced themselves so firmly that economic writers found it nearly impossible to talk about money without a [End Page 59] full panoply of classical erudition. 6 In France the second half of the sixteenth century saw the rise of a specialized, expert, and increasingly systematic tradition of monetary thought. Despite its classical vocabulary, this economic literature was in many ways "modern" in its methods, ambitions, and subject. While developing an account which aspired to a scientific explanation of commercial society and of how government and money interacted, the French commentators came to a partial realization of how radically their own society differed from those which had gone before. In this respect the prevailing climate of thought about money influenced even a writer as non-technical as Michel de Montaigne.Traditionally, scholarly treatment of early modern French economic texts has focused on a relatively small range of issues and authors. One such issue, the origins of the "quantity theory of money" (with Jean Bodin as its hero), is notable for its sterility, since that concept was not and could not have been meaningful to contemporaries. 7 The origin and development of "mercantilism" or, more broadly, of "political economy" in general, has proven a more fruitful subject of inquiry. 8 Undeniably, the changing relationships among governments, merchants, and the economy were a major public issue and, in the seventeenth century, a major site of theoretical reflection on the nature of political power generally. Even so, an excessive concentration on mercantilism is dangerous, for however one defines it, it was not the first, and for a long time not the most significant, economic discourse in France. Rather, from the 1560s well into the seventeenth century, French discussions of economic issues centered on very concrete problems brought about by the government's obligation to issue and maintain a stable currency. 9 While one would search this literature in vain for the specific doctrines of modern economics, I argue that it did represent a real achievement in the early modern understanding of commerce and the state. Though they have not received their due from scholars, the writers who took part in these debates formed a large and influential school with close ties to the actual institutions of government. 10 The French monetary theorists did an enormous amount [End Page 60] to set the stage for the mercantilist era. They developed a detailed notion of monetary economics as a specialized discipline, and above all they placed money and economic policy in the context of a multi-national system of commercial states. In so doing, they sought to comprehend and control not just money but the modern state itself.Early modern money was perched uncomfortably between commodity and fiat. Bewildering varieties of coins circulated, composed of all sorts of alloys. The government assigned a face value for each coin which it authorized to circulate in the abstract accounting unit called the "money of account." 11 This value was almost always greater than... (shrink)

As the signs of the highest expectations of the world’s economy come crashing down around us and the dust settles on a sorrowing humanity led foolishly towards war as its only and immediate prospect, ethical thinking is called upon to hold open the way for us to find the truth by which we are to live, and to do so with intellectual acuity and pastoral sensitivity. What might this way be? This paper is written as a preliminary exploration of the (...) question of this way, and of the truth to which ethics is ordered, and it is written to enquire about the way that is being drawn out by a global ethics. (shrink)

Caring for hospitalized patients with COVID-19 raises ethical dilemmas in which clinicians must weigh the unknown value of an intervention against the unknown risk of viral transmission. Current guidelines for delivering high-value care in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic do not directly address ethical dilemmas that arise from the unique concerns of individual patients. We propose an “ethical pause” in which clinicians address ethical dilemmas by taking time to ask three questions that invoke the major bioethical principles of beneficence, (...) nonmaleficence, and distributive justice: will this intervention help my patient? Could this intervention harm my patient? Could this intervention harm or help others? Using two exemplar cases, we demonstrate how the process of deliberately asking and answering structured ethical questions is a mindful problem-solving strategy that facilitates delivery of high-value care. (shrink)

The debate between A-theory and B-theory in the philosophy of time is a persistent one. It is not always clear, however, what the terms of this debate are. A-theorists are often lumped with a miscellaneous collection of heterodox doctrines: the view that only the present exists, that time flows relentlessly, or that presentness is a property (Williams 1996); that time passes, tense is unanalysable, or that earlier than and later than are defined in terms of pastness, presentness, and futurity (Bigelow (...) 1991); or that events or facts (as opposed to language) are “tensed” (Mellor 1993). B-theorists then argue that the A-theory is incoherent, using variants on J.M.E. McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time (McTaggart 1927, ch. 33). (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

We argue that Maclaurin and Dyke's recent critique of non-naturalistic metaphysics suffers from difficulties analogous to those that caused trouble for earlier positivist critiques of metaphysics. Maclaurin and Dyke say that a theory is naturalistic iff it has observable consequences. Depending on the details of this criterion, either no theory counts as naturalistic or every theory does.

In a recent paper, Pierluigi Barrotta argues that Mises ‘ended up by defending an epistemological tenet very far from Kant's’, concluding that ‘Mises's apriorism cannot be vindicated through Kant's epistemology’. In contrast, I shall argue that certain of Mises's arguments can be reconstructed in Kantian terms, and thus the distance between Mises and Kant is not as extreme as Barrotta's argument may appear to suggest. Specifically, I shall argue that Mises, like Kant, seeks to establish the a priori nature of (...) the category of causality. To this extent at least, Mises's apriorism can be vindicated through Kant's epistemology. (shrink)

This book brings together, in systematic and generalized form, the main outlines of a conceptual scheme for the analysis of the structure and processes of social systems. It carries out Pareto's intention by using the "structural-functional" level of analysis.

Aesthetics and Nature offers a clear and accessible introduction to the field of nature aesthetics. Glenn Parsons explores the current debates in the field, providing the reader with a thorough overview of the subject. The book situates nature aesthetics in relation to two principal influences: aesthetics' traditional project of understanding the value of art and current thought on the ethics of our relationship with nature. The book outlines five major approaches to understanding the aesthetic value of nature and explores (...) the aesthetic appreciation of nature as it occurs in wilderness, in gardens, and in the context of appreciating environmental art. The book also includes a study of the idea that conserving nature's beauty provides a compelling reason to preserve wilderness. This highly topical idea has deep implications for the importance of aesthetic value in our relationship to nature, and for the fate of nature itself. Combining a clear and engaging style with a sophisticated treatment of a fascinating subject, Aesthetics and Nature is a valuable contribution to contemporary aesthetics. (shrink)