Do the conditions under which promises are made determine whether they ought to be kept? Philosophers have placed a number of conditions on promising which, they hold, must be met in order to make promise‐keeping obligatory. In so doing, they have distinguished valid promises from invalid promises and justified promises from promises that are not justified. Considering such conditions, one by one, we argue that they are mistaken. In the first place, the conditions they lay down are not necessary for (...) either valid or justified promise‐making. In the second place, promises need not meet such conditions in order to create moral obligations. In general, such analyses of promising fail because they suffer from a confusion between promise‐making and promise‐keeping. Philosophers have wrongly supposed that obligations to keep promises are dependent upon, or derivable from, the quality of the promises themselves, at the time they are made, instead of focusing on conditions that must be satisfied at the time when promises are supposed to be kept. It is not the quality of a promise that determines an obligation to keep it but the rightness or wrongness of performing the promised act. (shrink)

This new edition explores how the insights and techniques developed by philosophers can help illuminate and resolve moral issues. MORAL REASONING develops reasoning skills necessary for understanding and applying ethical theories. It approaches ethics from a philosophical point of view and develops a theory of applied ethics.

Motilal Shastri developed an ethical theory which closely resembles rule utilitarianism at roughly the same time as and yet in complete independence of English-speaking philosophers. The philosophic significance of his view lies in the manner in which he develops and justifies his position. Shastri contends that efficiency in action requires indifference or inattention to ends. He appears to use the same device for justifying rule-governed duties that Mill uses to justify a move from egoism to altruism: that actions first viewed (...) as means may later become ends in themselves. However, in Shastri’s theory, ends appear to be retained as unconscious motives. (shrink)

Motilal Shastri developed an ethical theory which closely resembles rule utilitarianism at roughly the same time as and yet in complete independence of English-speaking philosophers. The philosophic significance of his view lies in the manner in which he develops and justifies his position. Shastri contends that efficiency in action requires indifference or inattention to ends. He appears to use the same device for justifying rule-governed duties that Mill uses to justify a move from egoism to altruism: that actions first viewed (...) as means may later become ends in themselves. However, in Shastri’s theory, ends appear to be retained as unconscious motives. (shrink)

Introduction -- Part I: Growth, inquiry, and unity -- Problems with inquiry -- Aesthetic inquiry -- Inquiry, inquiry, inquiry -- Why unification? -- Part II: The metaphysics of unity -- The quest for being QUA being -- Time and individuality -- The Humpty-Dumpty intuition -- The mystical.

Bambrough, R. Essay on man.--Quinton, A. Has man an essence?--Warnock, G. J. Kant and anthropology.--Honderich, T. On inequality and violence, and the differences we make between them.--Cherry, C. Agreement, objectivity and the sentiment of humanity in morals.--Gregory, I. Psycho-analysis, human nature and human conduct.--Gosling, J. The natural supremacy of conscience.--Scruton, R. Reason and happiness.--Wollheim, R. Needs, desires, and moral turpitude.--Hollis, M. My role and its duties.--Watkins, J. Three views concerning human freedom.--Letwin, S. R. Nature, history, and morality.--Passmore, J. Attitudes to (...) nature.--Benson, J. Hog in sloth, fox in stealth: man and beast in moral thinking.--Hare, R. Contrasting methods of environmental planning.--Self, P. Techniques and values in policy decisions. (shrink)

This chapter offers a review of standard views about the requirements for natural selection to shape evolution and for the sorts of ‘units’ on which selection might operate. It then summarizes traditional arguments for genic selectionism, i.e., the view that selection operates primarily on genes (e.g., those of G. C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, and David Hull) and traditional counterarguments (e.g., those of William Wimsatt, Richard Lewontin, and Elliott Sober, and a diffuse group based on life history strategies). It (...) then offers a series of responses to the arguments, based on more contemporary considerations from molecular genetics, offered by Carmen Sapienza. A key issue raised by Sapienza concerns the degree to which a small number of genes might be able to control much of the variation relevant to selection operating on such selectively critical organs as hearts. The response to these arguments suggests that selection acts on many levels at once and that sporadic selection, acting with strong effects, can act successively on different key traits (and genes) while maintaining a balance among many potentially conflicting demands faced by organisms within an evolving lineage. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Ted Bundy and Dennis Rader Psychopaths versus Psychotics The Psychopath Language and the Emotional Brain Empathy, Lack of Shame, Insincerity Fantasies The Serial Killer and Nietzsche.

The foundation of ethics, created in the image of God -- A lifestyle of honesty and integrity -- A lifestyle of loyalty -- The sacredness of trust and confidence -- Ethics in horizontal relationships -- Ethics in vertical relationships, leaders in authority -- Ethics between men and women -- Avoiding the trap of criticism -- Living as a spiritual leader -- Ethics of influence -- Ethics in the workplace -- Ethics of stewardship, time, finances, and talents -- Maintaining one's mental, (...) physical, and spiritual well-being in Christ -- Ethics in ministry -- A final word, a lifestyle that honors Jesus Christ and avoids reproach. (shrink)

The measurement of sensory intensity has had a long history, attracting the attention of investigators from many disciplines including physiology, psychology, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and even chemistry. While there has been a continuing doubt by some that sensation has the properties necessary for measurement, experiments designed to obtain estimates of sensory intensity have found that a general rule applies: Equal stimulus ratios produce equal sensory ratios. Theories concerning the basis for this simple psychophysical rule are discussed, with emphasis given to (...) the physical correlate theory, which considers judgments of subjective magnitudes to be based upon estimates of physical dimensions that vary regularly with changes in degree of stimulation. For the most thoroughly investigated sensory scales, brightness and loudness, the physical correlate is considered to be distance. Our “tacit knowledge” of the sensory effects of changing distance plays an essential role in matching motor activities to environmental conditions and in ensuring accurate perceptual evaluations through brightness and loudness constancies. In psychophysical experiments, subjects apparently use this same tacit knowledge when required to estimate relative subjective magnitudes. The evidence related to the physical correlate theory is summarized, and it is concluded that, while under appropriate conditions we demonstrate considerable skill in evaluating environmental relationships, we are quite unable to estimate the neurophysiological nature or quantity of sensory response. A psychophysics devoted to studying conditions required for accuracy and conditions producing errors in the perception of environmental relationships would seem to be more valuable than one devoted to subjective magnitudes. (shrink)

God -- On the cognitivity of mystical experiences -- The problem of evil -- God eternal and Paul helm -- A new cosmological argument, co-authored with Alexander Pruss -- A response to oppy and to Davey and Clifton -- Co-authored with Alexander Pruss -- The ecumenicalism of William James -- Time -- Is it now now? -- McTaggart's analysis of time -- The egocentric particular and token-reflexive analyses of tense -- The impossibility of backward causation -- An identity theory of (...) the A- and B-series -- Co-authored with Michelle Beer -- Disanalogies between space and time -- Nonbeing -- Negative statements -- On what there isn't -- Nonbeing and the receptacle -- Could logical space be empty? (shrink)

This book uses Kant's idea of imperfect duty to extend the theory of the firm. Unlike perfect duty which is contractual or otherwise legally binding, imperfect duty consists of those commitments of choice that pursue some moral value, but that have practical limits to their pursuit. The author presents a broad view of the imperfect duties of management, defined as a nexus of all commitments to do good involving relations internal and external to the firm. This nexus consists of three (...) overlapping categories of (i) building a virtuous managerial community, (ii) pursuing reasoned managerial discourse, and (iii) diligent and reasoned pursuit of the body of routine managerial duties such as capital budgeting and internal controls. Specific applications of the nexus theory for stakeholder relations via fair negotiation, and for analysis of the effects on the managerial team of perquisite consumption are presented. This book has major implications for research in business ethics and allows critical insights into managerial decision making. (shrink)

Ethics and the Clinical Encounter explores the moral dimensions of clinical medicine and the phenomenon of illness, to determine what ethics must be in order to be fully responsive to clinical encounters. Written in a lively and conversational style with minimal technical terminology, and enhanced by actual experience or real clinical situations, this volume lays out a clinical ethics methodology both in practical and theoretical terms. Here's what the experts had to say: Professor Zaner has provided us with a remarkably (...) lucid and trenchant discussion of the interface of philosophy and the field of medicine. He brings into play an extraordinary range of historial knowledge, extensive observations based on firsthand experience with medical practices, and an acute sense of philosophical argumentation. This is a work that will be an exemplary and indispensable text in the philosophy of medicine for years to come. -- Calvin Schrag... it is a highly original contribution usable in a number of fields.... It really has no competition.... The genius of Zaner's approach is to ground ethics from the 'bottom up' and to direct us to the concrete particulars of therapeutic encounters wherein lie moral and ethical matters... meaty, challenging, and ultimately rewarding.... -- Paul R. Dokecki Richard M. Zaner founded the Center for Clinical and Research Ethics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Having established Vanderbilt's first Hospital Ethics Committee (1985), he served as co-chair of VUMC's Ethics Committee since its inception in 1990. Zaner has published five original books, edited ten, and translated four more, and has published more than 100 sections of books and professional journals. (shrink)

Tested the 2-process theory of detection, search, and attention presented by the current authors in a series of experiments. The studies demonstrate the qualitative difference between 2 modes of information processing: automatic detection and controlled search; trace the course of the learning of automatic detection, of categories, and of automatic-attention responses; and show the dependence of automatic detection on attending responses and demonstrate how such responses interrupt controlled processing and interfere with the focusing of attention. The learning of categories is (...) shown to improve controlled search performance. A general framework for human information processing is proposed. The framework emphasizes the roles of automatic and controlled processing. The theory is compared to and contrasted with extant models of search and attention. (shrink)

Early in the first volume of his Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomeno logie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie, Edmund Husserl stated concisely the significance and scope of the problem with which this present study is concerned. When we reflect on how it is that consciousness, which is itself absolute in relation to the world, can yet take on the character of transcendence, how it can become mundanized, We see straightaway that it can do that only by means of a certain participation in (...) transcendence in the first, originary sense, which is manifestly the transcendence of material Nature. Only by means of the experiential relation to the animate organism does consciousness become really human and animal (tierischen), and only thereby does it achieve a place in the space and in the time of Nature. l Consciousness can become "worldly" only by being embodied within the world as part of it. In so far as the world is material Nature, consciousness must partake of the transcendence of material Nature. That is to say, its transcendence is manifestly an embodiment in a material, corporeal body. Consciousness, thus, takes on the characteristic of being "here and now" (ecceity) by means of experiential (or, more accurately, its intentive) relation to that corporeal being which embodies it. Accordingly, that there is a world for consciousness is a conse quence in the first instance of its embodiment by 2 that corporeal body which is for it its own animate organism. (shrink)

This book is a critical examination of certain basic issues and themes crucial to understanding how ethics currently interfaces with health care and biomedical research. Beginning with an overview of the field, it proceeds through a delineation of such key notions as trust and uncertainty, dialogue involving talk and listening, the vulnerability of the patient against the asymmetric power of the health professional, along with professional and individual responsibility. It emphasizes several themes fundamental to ethics and health care: (1) the (...) work of ethics requires strict focus on the specific situational understanding of each involved person. (2) Moral issues, at least those intrinsic to each clinical encounter, are presented solely within the contexts of their actual occurrence; therefore, ethics must not only be practical but empirical in its approach. (3) Each particular situation is in its own way imprecise and uncertain, and the different types and dimensions of imprecision and uncertainty are critical for everyone involved. (4) Finally, medicine and health care more broadly are governed by the effort to make sense of the healer's experiences with the patient, whose own experiences and interpretations are ingredient to what the healer seeks to understand and eventually treat. In addition to providing a way to develop ethical considerations in clinical life and research projects, the book proposes that narratives provide the finest way to state and grapple with these themes and issues, whether in classrooms or real-life situations. It concludes with a prospective analysis of newly emerging issues presented by and within the new genetics, which, together within a focus on the phenomenon of birth, leads to an clearer understanding of human life. (shrink)

Early in the first volume of his Ideen zu einer reinen Phiinomeno logie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie, Edmund Husserl stated concisely the significance and scope of the problem with which this present study is concerned. When we reflect on how it is that consciousness, which is itself absolute in relation to the world, can yet take on the character of transcendence, how it can become mundanized, We see straightaway that it can do that only by means of a certain participation in (...) transcendence in the first, originary sense, which is manifestly the transcendence of material Nature. Only by means of the experiential relation to the animate organism does consciousness become really human and animal (tierischen), and only thereby does it achieve a place in the space and in the time of Nature. l Consciousness can become "worldly" only by being embodied within the world as part of it. In so far as the world is material Nature, consciousness must partake of the transcendence of material Nature. That is to say, its transcendence is manifestly an embodiment in a material, corporeal body. Consciousness, thus, takes on the characteristic of being "here and now" (ecceity) by means of experiential (or, more accurately, its intentive) relation to that corporeal being which embodies it. Accordingly, that there is a world for consciousness is a conse quence in the first instance of its embodiment by 2 that corporeal body which is for it its own animate organism. (shrink)

This honest, forthright, and beautifully-written book introduces readers to the human variations on medical topics spoken of in abstract in the daily news--euthanasia, assisted suicide, abortion, "extreme procedures", genetic testing, experimental surgeries--and to the people who must agonize over those decisions regarding themselves and their loved ones.

Four prominent views of the nature and methods of clinical ethics (especially in consultation forums) are reviewed; each is then submitted to a criticism intended to show both weaknesses and strengths. It is argued that clinical ethics needs to be responsive to the specific complexities of clinical situations. For this, the need for an expanded notion of practical reason within unique situations is emphasized, one whose aim is to facilitate decision-making on the part of those directly responsible for them and (...) consonant with their own respective moral frameworks and conceptions of what is most worthwhile. Keywords: Casuistry, clinical ethics, consultation, decision-making, dialogue, facilitator, practical reason, relationships CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This article reviews the historical and current controversies about the nature of clinical ethics consultation, as a way to focus on the place and responsibility of ethics consultants within the context of clinical conversation — interpreted as a form of dialogue. These matters are approached through a particularly compelling instance of the controversy that involves several major figures in the field. The analysis serves to highlight very significant questions of the nature and constraints of clinical situations, and the moral responsibility (...) and legal accountability that are especially important for clinical ethics consultants. (shrink)

Many of the errors that occur in children' subtraction are due to the use of incorrect strategies rather than to the incorrect recall of number facts. A production system is presented for performing written subtraction which is consistent with an earlier analysis of the nature of such a cognitive skill. Most of the incorrect strategies used by schoolchildren can be accounted for in a principled way by simple changes in the production system, such as the omission of individual rules or (...) the inclusion of rules appropriate to other arithmetical tasks. The production system model is evaluated against a corpus of over 1500 subtraction problems done by 10‐year olds and is shown to account for about two‐thirds of the (nonnumber fact) errors. It also provides an alternative, simpler interpretation of the subtraction errors analysed by Brown and Burton (1978). Some implications for teaching are discussed. (shrink)

Physicians have for some time been questioning the prevailing view of medicine as applied biology. It is urged that medicine needs to be reconceived so as to provide appropriate emphasis on the patient's experience and understanding of illness. After reviewing these arguments and the scientific paradigm underlying the received view in light of certain themes in medicine's history and of current thinking, Pellegrino's thesis is analyzed: medicine should be understood as an inherently moral enterprise, a form of praxis focused on (...) "the healing relationship". Understanding the illness experience and the professed healer's "compassion" supports Pellegrino's view, and suggests that the healing relationship is perhaps best conceived as a form of dialogue. Keywords: compassion, dialogue, healing relationship, illness experience, interpretation CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)