In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:An Ethical Life: A Practical Guide to Ethical Reasoning by Richard KyteChristine FletcherAn Ethical Life: A Practical Guide to Ethical Reasoning Richard Kyte WINONA, NM: ANSELM ACADEMIC, 2012. 254 PP. $25.95Richard Kyte's introductory guide to ethics is designed to meet three concerns about current ethics textbooks: they tend to decrease students' confidence in their ability to think, they inculcate a distrust of deliberative processes, and they create an (...) appearance of moral relativism. Kyte succeeds in creating a text that overcomes these deficiencies. He uses common language and examples while remaining rigorous and fully explaining the common ethical theories.He opens with a chapter debunking thirteen misconceptions about ethics, such as "Ethics Is 'Nothing but Words,'" "Ethics Is Just a Matter of Opinion," and "Ethics Is Separate from Religion." This chapter should set the tone for a class that doesn't allow sloppy thinking or the reduction of ethics to feelings. The chapter concludes by defining ethics as common sense, meaning "the ability to find shared meaning in the words we use together to make sense of our lives" (51).The second chapter examines four ways of ethical thinking: truth, thinking in terms of the facts of the situation; consequences, thinking in terms of the results of an action; fairness, thinking in terms of equality and consistency; and character, thinking in terms of people's motivations, character traits, or both. He then uses practical problems to illustrate how, by using these four ways of ethical thinking, a conversation working toward an agreed-on action can take place. Ethics is no longer a shouting match but a way of appreciating different points of view and coming to a reasoned conclusion.The following chapters explore these four ways of ethical thinking. Chapter 3, "Truth," on its own would be an excellent text for any course that has "critical thinking" as a learning outcome. He covers moral responsibility, bias, self-deception, and power with succinct but powerful illustrations from life. He then moves on to discernment, which includes a discussion of good reading, evaluating sources of information, and evaluating arguments, including examples of the most common fallacies. His examples are from diverse sources such as Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, the Bible, Francis Bacon, and situations in ordinary life. This gives richness to the text and presents these concepts in an accessible and interesting way.The next three chapters, "Consequences," "Fairness," and "Character," cover the main features of utilitarianism, deontological ethics, and virtue ethics [End Page 191] in good detail, with summaries about major figures associated with these theories: Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Epictetus, Immanuel Kant, Aristotle, and St. Thomas Aquinas. These give the students biographical information as well as the significance of each thinker's work, explaining the key features, strengths, and weaknesses of their theories. The chapter on character has a very helpful discussion of the cardinal and theological virtues. Each chapter has suggestions for further reading.The appendix covers how to use this four-way method in group decision-making and in writing case studies or issues analyses, helpfully including an example of each. This book is written by a gifted teacher who draws students into his subject, shows them its relevance, and helps them develop the confidence and skills they need to take their part in the ethical conversations that will occur throughout their lives. It is an excellent text on its own or as a supplement to a standard textbook in professional ethics.Christine FletcherBenedictine UniversityCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Receiving a diagnosis of autism in adulthood can be a life changing event, impacting identity, relationships, and mental health. A lack of post-diagnostic support has been highlighted by autistic adults, their allies, clinicians, and service providers. It can be a source of distress for autistic adults, reinforcing feelings of social isolation and rejection. Peer support could be a cost-effective, flexible, and sustainable model to provide community-based support for autistic adults. However, there is little research on the value of peer support, (...) despite calls from the autistic community. This qualitative study explored autistic experiences and needs post-diagnosis, identifying specific ways that peer support may benefit them, and exploring the limitations of peer support. Twelve autistic adults who had all received an autism diagnosis in adulthood completed a semi-structured interview focussing on the diagnostic experience, post-diagnostic support needed and provided, engagement with the autistic community, and post-diagnostic peer support. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts resulted in four themes: Mismatch in support needed and provided; Community connection; Flexible and personalised support; and Sustainability. Participants indicated that peer support may be a useful mechanism to support autistic adults’ post-diagnosis and offers unique opportunities not available through other support channels. Though informal peer support exists, it could be more sustainable and effective if well-supported and funded. (shrink)

The enforcement of the alkali acts by the chief inspectors Robert Angus Smith and Alfred Evans Fletcher indicates how scientific ideals of neutrality and impartiality were placed under strain by their state‐sanctioned role as arbitrators between environmental and industrial interests. Previously unused or unexploited sources reveal the precise ways in which they sought to resolve the conflicts between ‘muck and brass' intrinsic to environmental regulation and illustrate the value‐laden and discretionary implementation of scientific public policy. Through an analysis of (...) the ethical considerations and decision‐making strategies of the first chief alkali inspectors this study highlights the social negotiation of regulatory science and shows the extent to which the cultural values of actors can shape the implementation of technical policy. (shrink)

Despite its apparent ubiquity, philosophers have not talked much about sentimental value. One exception is Anthony Hatzimoysis (The Philosophical Quarterly 53:373–379, 2003). Those who wish to take sentimental value seriously are likely to make use of Christine Korsgaard’s ideas on two distinctions in value. In this paper I show that Hatzimoysis has misrendered Korsgaard’s insight in his discussion of sentimental value. I begin by briefly summarising Korsgaard’s idea before showing how Hatzimoysis’ treatment of it is mistaken.

Ce livre se consacre à la création d’une nouvelle figure rhétorique dans les œuvres des auteurs « politiques » sous Charles VI et Charles VII : celle de « la France », imaginée allégoriquement comme une femme noble. D. Delogu explore le développement de cette figure d’Eustache Deschamps et Christine de Pisan à Alain Chartier et Jean Juvénal des Ursins. Elle présente des lectures très fines d’un corpus de textes souvent négligés. Dès le début, elle démonte l’avis fréquemment répété (...) selon leque... (shrink)

This chapter is divided into three parts. First I outline what makes something an objective list theory of well-being. I then go on to look at the motivations for holding such a view before turning to objections to these theories of well-being.

Claims about needs are a ubiquitous feature of everyday practical discourse. It is therefore unsurprising that needs have long been a topic of interest in moral philosophy, applied ethics, and political philosophy. Philosophers have devoted much time and energy to developing theories of the nature of human needs and the like. -/- Philosophers working on needs are typically committed to the idea that there are different kinds of needs and that within the different kinds of needs is a privileged class (...) of needs that is especially normatively significant. -/- Some philosophers go further and make rather grand claims about needs. They claim that needs are central or fundamental to moral thinking and that we must have a needs-centred moral theory or a general reorientation of moral philosophy around needs. -/- In this paper I aim to do two things. First, to show how applying recent work on modal terms can help us to understand thought and talk about needs. This is the positive part. I then use these ideas to cast doubt on the more ambitious claims about needs. Put briefly, a proper understanding of claims about needs undermines the idea that the concept of needs is fundamental in moral thought or in moral philosophy. Ambitious needs theory fails. (shrink)

This is a new edition of Joseph Fletcher's 1966 work that ignited a firestorm of controversy at the time of its publication.

This paper criticizes two accounts of the normativity of practical principles: the empiricist account and the rationalist or realist account. It argues against the empiricist view, focusing on the Humean texts that are usually taken to be its locus classicus. It then argues both against the dogmatic rationalist view, and for the Kantian view, through a discussion of Kant's own remarks about instrumental rationality in the second section of the Groundwork. It further argues that the instrumental principle cannot stand alone. (...) Unless there are normative principles directing us to the adoption of certain ends, there can be no requirement to take the means to our ends. The familiar view that the instrumental principle is the only requirement of practical reason is incoherent. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S3-S11, March‐April 2022.

This is a reprint of a book first published by Little, Brown in 1978. George Fletcher is working on a new edition, which will be published by Oxford in three volumes, the first of which is scheduled to appear in January of 2001. Rethinking Criminal Law is still perhaps the most influential and often cited theoretical work on American criminal law. This reprint will keep this classic work available until the new edition can be published.

In this paper I argue that the Canberra Plan is ill-equipped to offer a satisfactory theory of gender. Insofar as the Canberra Plan aims to provide a general and unified approach to philosophical theorising, this is a significant problem. I argue that this deficit in their method stems from the robust role assigned to pre-theoretical beliefs in constructing philosophical analyses. I utilise a critical conception of ideology to explain why our pre-theoretic beliefs about certain social kinds are likely to deliver (...) politically dubious metaphysics of the social world. The first half of the paper is dedicated to exercising this theoretical shortcoming. In the second half, I suggest a way in which the Canberra Plan can address and rectify this problem, with a view to maintaining the theoretical viability of the Canberra Plan with respect to politically important concepts. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the question of whether there exists an essential relation between emotions and wellbeing. We distinguish three ways in which emotions and wellbeing might be essentially related: constitutive, causal, and epistemic. We argue that, while there is some room for holding that emotions are constitutive ingredients of an individual’s wellbeing, all the attempts to characterise the causal and epistemic relations in an essentialist way are vulnerable to some important objections. We conclude that the causal and epistemic (...) relation between emotions and wellbeing is much less strong than is commonly thought. (shrink)

1. Being an Animal Human beings are animals: phylum: chordata, class: mammalia, order: primates, family: hominids, species: homo sapiens, subspecies: homo sapiens sapiens. According to current scientific opinion, we evolved approximately 200,000 years ago in Africa from ancestors whom we share with the other great apes. What does it mean that we are animals? Scientifically speaking, an animal is essentially a complex, multicellular organism that feeds on other life forms. But what we share with the other animals is not just (...) a definition: it is a history – that is, it is a story – and a resulting set of attributes and circumstances, and an ecosystem, and a planet. What is the story? Living things are homeostatic systems – they maintain themselves through a process of nutrition that enables them to work constantly at replacing the fragile materials of which they are composed. Living things also work at reproducing, or contributing to the reproduction, of other living things that maintain themselves in essentially the same way. To engage in those activities is essentially what it means to be alive. And in order to engage in those activities, a living thing must be, in some way, responsive to conditions in its environment. Plants, for instance, respond to dryness, by growing deeper roots, or to sunshine, by turning their leaves in its direction. Even a unicellular organism is drawn to some things and recoils from others. (shrink)

Recent national calls for ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) research to “assess and address how ethical, historical, social, economic, legal, regulatory, socio-cultural, and contextual...

I begin by discussing forms of cosmopolitanism that motivate challenges to distributive accounts of global justice. I then use Sen's version of the capabilities approach to show how distributive accounts fall short, why an overarching theory of justice is not needed, and that democracy understood as the exercise of public reasoning can do the work of identifying and addressing injustices. That said in favor of Sen, I argue that his account fails to attend to the kinds of injustices emerging from (...) relationships of power and the institutions and structures in which these relationships are embedded. To show this, I outline features of a feminist relational approach, which I then apply to Canada's attempt to address historic harms through the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While I agree with Sen that we do not need a theory of global justice that is universal, ideal, impartial, or abstracted from context, I aim to broaden the scope of justice beyond both distributive accounts and Sen's version of the capabilities approach. (shrink)

After discussing de Sousa's view of emotion in akrasia, I suggest that emotions be viewed as nonconceptual perceptions of value (see Tappolet 2000). It follows that they can render intelligible actions which are contrary to one's better judgment. An emotion can make one's action intelligible even when that action is opposed by one's all-things-considered judgment. Moreover, an akratic action prompted by an emotion may be more rational than following one's better judgement, for it may be the judgement and not the (...) perception which is in error. By contrast, "cool" akrasia is genuinely puzzling; it is not clear whether it exists. (shrink)

Christine Battersby rethinks questions of embodiment, essence, sameness and difference, self and "other", patriarchy and power. Using analyses of Kant, Adorno, Irigaray, Butler, Kierkegaard and Deleuze, she challenges those who argue that a feminist metaphysics is a a contradiction in terms. This book explores place for a metaphysics of fluidity in the current debates concerning postmodernism, feminism and identity politics.

The Covid‐19 pandemic has revealed myriad social, economic, and health inequities that disproportionately burden populations that have been made medically or socially vulnerable. Inspired by state and local governments that declared racism a public health crisis or emergency, the Anti‐Racism in Public Health Act of 2020 reflects a shifting paradigm in which racism is considered a social determinant of health. Indeed, health inequities fundamentally rooted in structural racism have been exacerbated by the Covid‐19 pandemic, which calls for the integration of (...) antiracist praxis to promote ethical public health research processes. This commentary describes ways in which antiracist praxis—which emphasizes empowerment of traditionally marginalized populations—offers strategies to explicitly address power imbalance, stigmatization, and other consequences of structural racism in public health research. (shrink)

This contribution considers whether or not it is possible to devise a coherent form of external skepticism about the normative if we ‘relax’ about normative ontology by regarding claims about the existence of normative truths and properties themselves as normative. I answer this question in the positive: A coherent form of non-normative error-theories can be developed even against a relaxed background. However, this form no longer makes any reference to the alleged falsity of normative judgments, nor the non-existence of normative (...) properties. Instead, it concerns a specifically inferentialist construal of error-theories which suggests that error-theorists should abstain from any claims about normative ontology to focus exclusively on claims about the inferential role of normative vocabulary. As I will show, this suggestion affords a number of important advantages. However, it also comes at a cost, in that it might not only change the letter, but also the spirit of traditional error-theories. (shrink)

In this one-of-a-kind text, George P. Fletcher, a renowned legal theorist, offers a provocative yet accessible overview of the basics of legal thought. The first section of the book is designed to introduce the reader to fundamental concepts such as the rule of law and deciding cases under the law. It continues with an analysis of the values of justice, desert, consent, and equality, as they figure into our judgment of legal cultures in terms of soundness and legitimacy. The (...) final chapters address the problems of morality and consistency in the law. In each case the author not only introduces the basic ideas but considers important arguments in the contemporary literature and raises original claims of his own. Ideally suited for courses in the philosophy of law, legal issues, and jurisprudence, Basic Concepts of Legal Thought fills a void in the literature, as there is no other volume that both eases law students into the mysteries of legal philosophy and provides an introduction to the legal mind for non-lawyers. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a metasemantics for relaxed moral realism. More precisely, I argue that relaxed realists should be inferentialists about meaning and explain that the role of evaluative moral vocabulary is to organise and structure language exit transitions, much as the role of theoretical vocabulary is to organise and structure language entry transitions.

Quasi-realist expressivists have developed a growing liking for minimalism about truth. It has gone almost unnoticed, though, that minimalism also drives an anti-Archimedean movement which launches a direct attack on expressivists’ non-moral self-image by proclaiming that all metaethical positions are built on moral grounds. This interplay between expressivism, minimalism and anti-Archimedeanism makes for an intriguing metaethical encounter. As such, the first part of this dissertation examines expressivism’s marriage to minimalism and defends it against its critics. The second part then turns (...) to the anti-Archimedean challenge to expressivism and shows how to ward off this challenge by securing expressivism’s non-moral, metaethical status without having to abandon minimalism about truth. (shrink)

Weshalb ziehen das Komma bei Kant oder das Ausrufezeichen bei Foucault nicht dasselbe Interesse auf sich wie der Gedankenstrich bei Kleist oder die Auslassungspunkte bei Schnitzler? Entgegen der Selbstverständlichkeit literaturwissenschaftlicher Interpretation, der zufolge jedes Zeichen die Sinnkonstruktion eines Textes mitträgt, erfahren Satzzeichen in der philosophischen Auslegung wenig Aufmerksamkeit. Entlang einzelner Beispiele schärfen die Beiträge dieses Bandes den Blick für das philologische Detail und zeigen, wie Satzzeichen nicht nur an der Entfaltung des rhetorischen Repertoires philosophischer Textpraxis konstitutiv beteiligt sind. Das aufmerksame (...) Close Reading wird dabei für die philosophische Lektüre überraschend fruchtbar. (shrink)

Angus Fletcher is one of our finest theorists of the arts, the heir to I. A. Richards, Erich Auerbach, Northrop Frye. This, his grandest book since the groundbreaking Allegory of 1964, aims to open another field of study: how thought--the act, the experience of thinking--is represented in literature. Recognizing that the field of formal philosophy is only one demonstration of the uses of thought, Fletcher looks for the ways other languages (and their framing forms) serve the purpose of (...) certain thinking activities. What kinds of thinking accompany the writing of history? How does the gnomic sentence manage to represent some point of belief? The fresh insights Fletcher achieves at every turn suggest an anatomy of poetic and fictional strategies for representing thought--the hazards, the complications, the sufferings, the romance of thought. Fletcher's resources are large, and his step is sure. The reader samples his piercing vision of Milton's Satan, the original Thinker, leaving the pain of thinking as his legacy for mankind; Marvell's mysteriously haunting "green thought in a green shade"; Old Testament and Herodotus, Vico and Coleridge; Crane, Calvino, Stevens. Fletcher ranges over the heights of literature, poetry, music, and film, never losing sight of his central line of inquiry. He includes comments on the essential role of unclear, vague, and even irrational thinking to suggest that ideas often come alive as thoughts only in a process of considerable distress. In the end he gives us literature--not the content of thought, but its form, its shape, the fugitive colors taken on by the mind as represented in art. (shrink)

In this one-of-a-kind text, George P. Fletcher, a renowned legal theorist, offers a provocative yet accessible overview of the basics of legal thought. The first section of the book is designed to introduce the reader to fundamental concepts such as the rule of law and deciding cases under the law. It continues with an analysis of the values of justice, desert, consent, and equality, as they figure into our judgment of legal cultures in terms of soundness and legitimacy. The (...) final chapters address the problems of morality and consistency in the law. In each case the author not only introduces the basic ideas but considers important arguments in the contemporary literature and raises original claims of his own. Ideally suited for courses in the philosophy of law, legal issues, and jurisprudence, Basic Concepts of Legal Thought fills a void in the literature, as there is no other volume that both eases law students into the mysteries of legal philosophy and provides an introduction to the legal mind for non-lawyers. (shrink)

In the United States today criminal justice can vary from state to state, as various states alter the Modern Penal Code to suit their own local preferences and concerns. In Eastern Europe, the post-Communist countries are quickly adopting new criminal codes to reflect their specific national concerns as they gain autonomy from what was once a centralized Soviet policy. As commonalities among countries and states disintegrate, how are we to view the basic concepts of criminal law as a whole? Eminent (...) legal scholar George Fletcher acknowledges that criminal law is becoming increasingly localized, with every country and state adopting their own conception of punishable behavior, determining their own definitions of offenses. Yet by taking a step back from the details and linguistic variations of the criminal codes, Fletcher is able to perceive an underlying unity among diverse systems of criminal justice. Challenging common assumptions, he discovers a unity that emerges not on the surface of statutory rules and case law but in the underlying debates that inform them. Basic Concepts of Criminal Law identifies a set of twelve distinctions that shape and guide the controversies that inevitably break out in every system of criminal justice. Devoting a chapter to each of these twelve concepts, Fletcher maps out what he considers to be the deep structure of all systems of criminal law. Understanding these distinctions will not only enable students to appreciate the universal fundamental ideas of criminal law, but will enable them to understand the significance of local details and variations. This accessible illustration of the unity of diverse systems of criminal justice will provoke and inform students and scholars of law and the philosophy of law, as well as lawyers seeking a better understanding of the law they practice. (shrink)

Scholars have long puzzled about how to reconcile the proposal in Republic V that women should share the education and work of men, including ruling, with the deeply misogynistic comments found in the Republic and throughout Plato’s corpus. Even those who doubt that the proposal represents a sincere recognition of the women’s equality with men must provide a plausible explanation for this radical departure from the norms of Plato’s day. Taking inspiration from Annie Larivée’s application of Michèle Le Doeuff’s notion (...) of déshérence to the Republic and the Politicus, I argue that a new appreciation of the importance of childrearing motivates the reimagination of women’s work in the Republic. On this reading, the transformation of childrearing from a private undertaking of mostly women to a shared responsibility of the city as a whole protects young children from moral corruption at the hands of uneducated and morally inferior mothers and nurses. (shrink)

What is the primary function of consciousness in the nervous system? The answer to this question remains enigmatic, not so much because of a lack of relevant data, but because of the lack of a conceptual framework with which to interpret the data. To this end, we have developed Passive Frame Theory, an internally coherent framework that, from an action-based perspective, synthesizes empirically supported hypotheses from diverse fields of investigation. The theory proposes that the primary function of consciousness is well-circumscribed, (...) serving the 'somatic nervous system[. For this system, consciousness serves as a frame that constrains and directs skeletal muscle output, thereby yielding adaptive behavior. The mechanism by which consciousness achieves this is more counterintuitive, passive, and “low level” than the kinds of functions that theorists have previously attributed to consciousness. Passive frame theory begins to illuminate (a) what consciousness contributes to nervous function, (b) how consciousness achieves this function, and (c) the neuroanatomical substrates of conscious processes. Our untraditional, action-based perspective focuses on olfaction instead of on vision and is 'descriptive' (describing the products of nature as they evolved to be) rather than 'normative' (construing processes in terms of how they should function). Passive frame theory begins to isolate the neuroanatomical, cognitive-mechanistic, and representational (e.g., conscious contents) processes associated with consciousness. (shrink)

Although computation and the science of physical systems would appear to be unrelated, there are a number of ways in which computational and physical concepts can be brought together in ways that illuminate both. This volume examines fundamental questions which connect scholars from both disciplines: is the universe a computer? Can a universal computing machine simulate every physical process? What is the source of the computational power of quantum computers? Are computational approaches to solving physical problems and paradoxes always fruitful? (...) Contributors from multiple perspectives reflecting the diversity of thought regarding these interconnections address many of the most important developments and debates within this exciting area of research. Both a reference to the state of the art and a valuable and accessible entry to interdisciplinary work, the volume will interest researchers and students working in physics, computer science, and philosophy of science and mathematics. (shrink)

Akratic actions are often being thought to instantiate a paradigmatic self-control failure. . If we suppose that akrasia is opposed to self-control, the question is how akratic actions could be free and intentional. After all, it would seem that it is only if an action manifests self-control that it can count as free. My plan is to explore the relation between akrasia and self-control. The first section presents what I shall call the standard conception, according to which akrasia and self-control (...) are contraries, and introduces the puzzle that this conception raises. The second section turns to the arguments for and against the possibility of free and intentional akratic actions. The third section questions the claim that akratic actions are necessarily opposed to actions manifesting self-control. (shrink)

Abstract As religious-environmental awareness in the United States becomes more widespread, many faith-based institutions find themselves unaware of the range of environmental actions that they can take, and methods for organizing their efforts for greatest impact. This essay conceptualizes Spirit, Stewardship, and Justice as organizing values for understanding religious-environmental efforts. The essay then reviews environmental action steps that faith-based institutions can take, including the integration of environmental focus into worship, religious education, spiritual practices, energy and water conservation, food practices, waste (...) management, toxics reduction, environmental justice education, alliance building, advocacy, and community organizing. The essay concludes with a review of research on community-based social marketing and organizational transformation, offering these as methods for increasing the impact of religious efforts to address energy and protect the environment. (shrink)

Feminism and Ecological Communities presents a bold and passionate rethinking of teh ecofeminist movement. It is one of the first books to acknowledge the importance of postmodern feminist arguments against ecofeminism whilst persuasively preseenting a strong new case for econolocal feminism. Chris J.Cuomo first traces the emergence of ecofeminism from the ecological and feminist movements before clearly discussing the weaknesses of some ecofeminist positions. Exploring the dualisms of nature/culture and masculing/feminine that are the bulwark of many contemporary ecofeminist positions and (...) questioning traditional traditional feminist analyses of gender and caring, Feminism and Ecological Communities asks whether women are essentially closer to nature than men and how we ought to link the oppression of women, people of colour, and other subjugated groups to the degradation of nature. Chris J.Cuomo addresses these key issues by drawing on recent work in feminist ethics as well as teh work of diverse figures such as Aristotle, John Dewey, Donna Haraway adn Maria Lugones. A fascinating feature of the book is the use of the metaphor of the cyborg to highlight the fluidity of the nature/culture distinction and how this can enrich econfeminist ethics and politics. An outstanding new argument for an ecological feminism that links both theory and practice, Feminism and Ecological Communities bravely redraws the ecofeminist map. It will be essential reading for all those interested in gender studies, environmental studies and philosophy. (shrink)