Online research in philosophy

Although biologists and philosophers of science generally agree that genes cannot determine the forms of biological and psychological traits, students, journalists, politicians, and other members of the general public nonetheless continue to embrace genetic determinism. This article identifies some of the concerns typically raised by individuals when they first encounter the systems perspective that biologists and philosophers of science now favor over genetic determinism, and uses arguments informed by that perspective to address those concerns. No definitive statements can yet be (...) made about why genetic determinism has proven so resilient in the face of empirical evidence pointing up its deficiencies, but conveying the essential interdependence of 'nature' and 'nurture' to the general public will likely require deployment of the arguments that systems theorists ordinarily use to reject genetic determinism. In addition, the elaboration of new metaphors that focus attention on the dynamic nature of trait construction will likely prove valuable, because re-conceptualizing notions like 'genes' and 'nature' will probably be one of the most effective ways to help students and the general public abandon the genetic determinism that biologists now recognize as indefensible. (shrink)

In this bold and innovative new work, Adrian Moore provides a refreshing but challenging new interpretation of Kant's moral philosophy and argues that it can enrich our understanding of a central problem in contemporary ethical debate: the problem of rationality. Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty is essential reading for all those interested in Kant, ethics and philosophy of religion.

Concerns about children's ability to fully comprehend and evaluate advertising messages has stimulated substantial research and heated debate among scholars, business leaders, consumer advocates, and public policy makers for more than three decades. During that time, some very fundamental questions about the fairness of marketing to children have been raised, yet many remain unresolved today. With the emergence of increasingly sophisticated advertising media, promotional offers and creative appeals in recent years, new issues have also developed. This paper provides a basis (...) for further examination of some the key questions in this area, and suggests how children's advertising research can be employed to illuminate them. (shrink)

First published in 1903, this volume revolutionized philosophy and forever altered the direction of ethical studies. A philosopher’s philosopher, G. E. Moore was the idol of the Bloomsbury group, and Lytton Strachey declared that Principia Ethica marked the rebirth of the Age of Reason. This work clarifies some of moral philosophy’s most common confusions and redefines the science’s terminology. Six chapters explore: the subject matter of ethics, naturalistic ethics, hedonism, metaphysical ethics, ethics in relation to conduct, and the ideal. (...) Moore's simplicity of style and precise use of everyday language exercised an enormous influence on the development of analytic philosophy, and they contribute to the continuing resonance of his compelling arguments. (shrink)

[A. W. Moore] There are criteria of ineffability whereby, even if the concept of ineffability can never serve to modify truth, it can sometimes (non-trivially) serve to modify other things, specifically understanding. This allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus and those who adopt the new reading recently championed by Diamond, Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, (...) rather than ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. /// [Peter Sullivan] Moore proposes to cut between 'traditional' and 'new' approaches to the Tractatus, suggesting that Wittgenstein's intention is to convey, through the knowing use of nonsense, ineffable understanding. I argue, first, that there is indeed room for a proposal of Moore's general kind. Secondly, though, I question whether Moore's actual proposal is not more in tune with Wittgenstein's later thought than with the attitude of the Tractatus. (shrink)

In this paper we explore Jaegwon Kim’s principle of explanatory exclusion. Kim’s support for the principle is clarified and we critically evaluate several versions of the dual explananda response authors have offered to undermine it. We argue that none of the standard versions of the dual explananda reply are entirely successful and propose an alternative approach that reveals a deep tension in Kim’s metaphysics. We argue that Kim can only retain the principle of explanatory exclusion if he abandons his longstanding (...) critique of nonreductive physicalism. (shrink)

This essay examines the central claim of Caney's book, viz., that there is no reason to treat the global sphere differently from the domestic sphere. It suggests that there is much that is valuable in having relatively autonomous, differentiated political communities, which both versions of Caney's scope argument ignore. This insight is explored via a critical assessment of both versions of Caney's scope argument; version 1, which is focused on civil and political rights (and argues that that they should be (...) universalized) and version 2, which applies to theories of distributive justice (particularly Caney's global equality of opportunity principle). (shrink)

What gave rise to Ernst Zermelo's axiomatization of set theory in 1908? According to the usual interpretation, Zermelo was motivated by the set-theoretic paradoxes. This paper argues that Zermelo was primarily motivated, not by the paradoxes, but by the controversy surrounding his 1904 proof that every set can be well-ordered, and especially by a desire to preserve his Axiom of Choice from its numerous critics. Here Zermelo's concern for the foundations of mathematics diverged from Bertrand Russell's on the one hand (...) and from Felix Hausdorff's on the other. (shrink)

G. E. Moore's 1912 work Ethics has tended to be overshadowed by his famous earlier work Principia Ethica. However, its detailed discussions of utilitarianism, free will, and the objectivity of moral judgements find no real counterpart in Principia, while its account of right and wrong and of the nature of intrinsic value deepen our understanding of Moore's moral philosophy. Moore himself regarded the book highly, writing late in his career, "I myself like [it] better (...) than Principia Ethica, because it seems to me to be much clearer and far less full of confusions and invalid arguments." Short but philosophically rich, and written with impressive precision and intellectual candor, Ethics is a minor classic which repays careful study. This new edition includes Moore's essay "The Nature of Moral Philosophy" as well as editorial notes, an introduction, and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

Restrictions upon international bribery by U.S. business firms, as incorporated in the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, have been controversial since this legislation was passed in 1977. Despite many attempts to repeal or change the law, it remains as originally enacted.This article reports on a survey of U.S. business professionals concerning international bribery. Response to our survey reveals a divided business community in terms of their opinions on the ethics of international payments prohibited by the present law.

The author begins with an outline of Bernard William's moral philosophy, within which he locates William's notorious doctrine that reflection can destroy ethical knowledge. He then gives a partial defence of this doctrine, exploiting an analogy between ethical judgements and tensed judgements. The basic idea is that what the passage of time does for the latter, reflection can do for the former: namely, prevent the re-adoption of an abandoned point of view (an ethical point of view in the one case, (...) a temporal point of view in the other). In the final section the author says a little about how reflection might do this. Footnotes1 This essay is derived from a lecture entitled ‘Bernard Williams’, delivered at Oxford University in 2000, in the series ‘Oxford Philosophers on Oxford Philosophers’, organized by Peter Hacker and David Wiggins. I am grateful to those who attended the lecture, and to Bernard Williams, for helpful comments. (shrink)

Nietzsche, Biology and Metaphor explores the German philosopher's response to the intellectual debates sparked by the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. By examining the abundance of biological metaphors in Nietzsche's writings, Gregory Moore questions his recent reputation as an eminently subversive and (post) modern thinker, and shows how deeply Nietzsche was immersed in late nineteenth-century debates on evolution, degeneration and race. The first part of the book provides a detailed study and new interpretation of Nietzsche's much disputed (...) relationship to Darwinism. Uniquely, Moore also considers the importance of Nietzsche's evolutionary perspective for the development of his moral and aesthetic philosophy. The second part analyzes key themes of Nietzsche's cultural criticism - his attack on the Judaeo-Christian tradition, his diagnosis of the nihilistic crisis afflicting modernity and his anti-Wagnerian polemics - against the background of fin-de-siècle fears about the imminent biological collapse of Western civilization. (shrink)

This paper is a further development of two previous pieces of work (Moore 2002, 2005) in which modern virtue ethics, and in particular MacIntyre’s (1985) related notions of “practice” and “institution,” have been explored in the context of business. It first introduces and defines the concept of corporate character and seeks to establish why it is important. It then reviews MacIntyre’s virtues-practice-institution schema and the implications of this at the level of the institution in question—the corporation—and argues that the (...) concept of corporate character follows from, but is a novel development of, MacIntyre’s schema. The paper contrasts corporate character and virtues with the more familiar concepts of corporate culture and values. The constitutive and substantive elementsof corporate character, including the essential corporate virtues, are then drawn out and illustrated with reference to the cases explored in Koehn (1998). Finally, the paper acknowledges and counters a specific criticism of this approach. (shrink)

The question of realism - that is, whether God exists independently of human beings - is central to much contemporary theology and church life. It is also an important topic in the philosophy of religion. This book discusses the relationship between realism and Christian faith in a thorough and systematic way and uses the resources of both philosophy and theology to argue for a Christocentric narrative realism. Many previous defences of realism have attempted to model Christian belief on scientific theory (...) but Moore argues that this comparison is misleading and inadequate on both theological and philosophical grounds. Using Speech Act theory and the work of non-realists and Wittgensteinians, he offers a new account of the meaningfulness of Christian language; and uses this to develop a regulative conception of realism according to which God's independent reality is shown principally in Christ and, on this basis, through Christian practices and the lives of Christians. (shrink)

This paper briefly reviews the theories that seek to explain the phenomenon of corporate charitable donations and then provides a review of the empirical issues that have arisen in previous studies in this area. The findings of an analysis of charitable donations data from the entire U.K. FTSE index for the years 1985–2000 are then reported. These findings include the observation of a time-related increase in charitable donations, which is compared with an earlier study to give a 24 year history (...) of charitable donations in the U.K. The findings note little responsiveness of the monetary value of charitable donations to the economic performance of firms. An international comparison over time against U.S. trends is also reported and shows how U.S. corporations have traditionally been more generous than U.K. firms, but that the trend in the U.S. is downwards. Membership of a U.K.-based "tithing" club (the PerCent Club) is shown to be associated with higher profit performance against non-members. Members' charitable contributions against profit are shown to be higher than the FTSE mean although short of the 0.5% target figure in "cash" terms. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of these findings in relation to the theoretical positions advanced for corporate philanthropy. (shrink)

The paper begins by exploring whether a “tendency to avarice” exists in most capitalist business organisations. It concludes that it does and that this is problematic. The problem centres on the potential threat to the integrity of human character and the disablement of community.What, then, can be done about it? Building on previous work (Moore, 2002) in which MacIntyre’s notions of practice and institution were explored (MacIntyre, 1985), the paper offers a philosophically based argument in favour of the rediscovery (...) of craftsmanship by those who work in business organisations, and the exercise of craftsmanship in community.The practical implications for individuals of this way of conceptualising business, and the virtues which must then come to the fore, are discussed. (shrink)

In Michael Dummett's celebrated essay on Gödel's theorem he considers the threat posed by the theorem to the idea that meaning is use and argues that this threat can be annulled. In my essay I try to show that the threat is even less serious than Dummett makes it out to be. Dummett argues, in effect, that Gödel's theorem does not prevent us from "capturing" the truths of arithmetic; I argue that the idea that meaning is use does not require (...) that we be able to "capture" these truths anyway. Towards the end of my essay I relate what I have been arguing first to Dummett's concept of indefinite extensibility and then to some of Wittgenstein's remarks on Gödel's theorem. (shrink)

Moore, Gerard Review(s) of: The trinity: Insights from the mystics, by Anne Hunt, A Michael Glazier Book, Collegeville: Liturgical Press. 2010, pp.190, ISBN 9780814656921, $37.95.

Margaret Moore | : Les questions de justice soulevées par la possession du territoire sont nombreuses. Qui a droit à quoi ? La distribution est-elle équitable ? Quels sont les droits censés découler d’un droit au territoire ? Et il y en a bien d’autres. Le présent article met en évidence que ces questions de justice sont abordées sous une perspective plutôt différente selon la conception que l’on se fait du territoire. Il existe à ce dernier égard deux courants (...) dominants : le premier, souvent identifié à Locke, voit le territoire sous l’angle de la propriété ; le second, que l’on rattache à Kant, est considéré comme le domaine géographique du pouvoir juridictionnel. | : There are many justice issues raised by the possession of territory ; questions of who is entitled to what ; the fairness of the distribution ; and the entitlements that are thought to follow from having a right to territory, to name a few. This paper then goes on to show that these justice issues are framed somewhat differently depending on one’s conception of territory. There are two dominant conceptions of territory : territory as property ; and territory as the geographical domain of jurisdictional authority. The former is often identified with Locke, and the latter with Kant. (shrink)

Qualia Epiphenomenalism is the view that qualitative events lack causal efficacy. A common objection to qualia epiphenomenalism is the so-called Self-Stultifying Objection, which suggests that justified, true belief about qualitative events requires, among other things, the belief to be caused by the qualitative event—the very premise that qualia epiphenomenalism denies. William Robinson provides the most sustained response to the self-stultification objection that is available. In this paper I argue that Robinson's reply does not sufficiently overcome the self-stultification objection.

This volume presents a selection of the most important writings in the debate on the nature of meaning and reference which started one hundred years ago with Frege's classic essay "On Sense and Reference." Contributors include Bertrand Russell, P.F. Strawson, W.V. Quine, Donald Davidson, John McDowell, Michael Dummett, Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke, David Wiggins, and Gareth Evans. The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a wide variety (...) of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. (shrink)

In this study of Martin Buber's life and work, Donald Moore focuses in on Buber's central message about what it means to be a human being and a person of faith.

This article evaluates New Zealand’s Medicines Amendment Bill 2011. This Bill is currently before Parliament and will amend the Medicines Act 1981. On June 20, 2011, the Australian and New Zealand governments announced their decision to proceed with a joint scheme for the regulation of therapeutic products such as medicines, medical devices, and new medical interventions. Eventually, the joint arrangements will be administered by a single regulatory agency: the Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency. The medicines regulations in Australia and (...) New Zealand will be updated as part of this process. The Medicines Amendment Bill addresses some of the well-recognised deficiencies in the Medicines Act 1981. However, a comprehensive overhaul of the Act is not being undertaken. I argue that repealing and replacing the Medicines Act 1981 would be preferable and advisable, given the number of legal difficulties with the Act and, in particular, where it does not align with equivalent current international law. (shrink)

G. E. Moore was one of the most interesting and influential philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century. This selection of his writings makes the best of his work once again available, and also includes previously unpublished writings. Moore's first published writings, represented in this collection by his papers "The Nature of Judgment" and "The Refutation of Idealism," contributed decisively to the break with idealism which led to the development of analytic philosophy. Moore went on (...) to develop his own style, which combined a defense of the common sense view of the world with a controversial analysis of the content of this view. Also included is Moore's famous "Proof of an External World," which marked a return late in his career to the critique of idealism. Other papers address perception and important issues in logical theory. The collection ends with three new pieces which illustrate Moore's relationship with Wittgenstein. In these pieces Moore discusses his "paradox" whichso fascinated Wittgenstein; the nature of our knowledge of our own sensations; and Malcolm's views about doubt and knowledge which were themselves inspired by Wittgenstein. (shrink)

How are the properties of computer programs proved? We discuss three approaches in this article: inductive invariants, functional semantics, and explicit semantics. Because the first approach has received by far the most attention, it has produced the most impressive results to date. However, the field is now moving away from the inductive invariant approach.

This work provides, for the first time, a unified account of the theory of action presupposed by both British and American criminal law and its underlying morality. It defends the view that human actions are volitionally caused body movements. This theory illuminates three major problems in drafting and implementing criminal law--what the voluntary act requirement does and should require, what complex descriptions of actions prohibited by criminal codes both do and should require, and when the two actions are the "same" (...) for purposes of assessing whether multiple prosecutions and multiple punishments are warranted. The book contributes to the development of a coherent theory of action in philosophy. It provides a grounding in three of the most basic elements of criminal liability for legislators, judges, and the lawyers who argue to them. (shrink)

Originally published: Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.

This book is a sophisticated, detailed, and original examination of the main ideas that have dominated Anglo-American legal philosophy since the Second World War. The author probes such themes as: whether there can be right answers to all disputed law cases; how laws and other rules impact on the practical rationality of actors subject to their authority; whether general principles justifying the law must themselves be thought of as part of the law binding on legal actors; and the possibility of (...) an interpretivist jurisprudence that is continuous with law practice in a given culture. (shrink)

Radical psychiatrists and others assert that mental illness is a myth. The opening and closing portions of the paper deal with the impact such argument has had in law and psychiatry. The body of the paper discusses the five versions of the myth argument prevalent in radical psychiatry: (A) that there is no such thing as mental illness; (B) that those called ?mentally ill? are really as rational as everyone else, only with different aims; that the only reasons anyone ever (...) thought differently was (C) because of unsophisticated category mistakes or (D) because of an adherence to the epistemology of a sick society; and (E) that the phrase ?mental illness? is used to mask value judgments about others? behavior in pseudo?scientific respectability. Reasons are given for rejecting each of these versions of the argument that mental illness is a myth. (shrink)

The psycholinguistic literature has identified two syntactic adaptation effects in language production: rapidly decaying short-term priming and long-lasting adaptation. To explain both effects, we present an ACT-R model of syntactic priming based on a wide-coverage, lexicalized syntactic theory that explains priming as facilitation of lexical access. In this model, two well-established ACT-R mechanisms, base-level learning and spreading activation, account for long-term adaptation and short-term priming, respectively. Our model simulates incremental language production and in a series of modeling studies, we show (...) that it accounts for (a) the inverse frequency interaction; (b) the absence of a decay in long-term priming; and (c) the cumulativity of long-term adaptation. The model also explains the lexical boost effect and the fact that it only applies to short-term priming. We also present corpus data that verify a prediction of the model, that is, that the lexical boost affects all lexical material, rather than just heads. (shrink)

Neuroscience is commonly thought to challenge the basic way we think of ourselves in ordinary thought, morality, and the law. This paper: (1) describes the legal institutions challenged in this way by neuroscience, including in that description both the political philosophy such institutions enshrine and the common sense psychology they presuppose; (2) describes the three kinds of data produced by contemporary neuroscience that is thought to challenge these commonsense views of ourselves in morals and law; and (3) distinguishes four major (...) and several minor kinds of challenges that that data can reasonably be interpreted to present. The major challenges are: first, the challenge of reductionism, that we are merely machines; second, the challenge of determinism, that we are caused to choose and act as we do by brain states that we do not control; third, the challenge of epiphenomenalism, that our choices do not cause our actions because our brains are the real cause of those actions; and fourth, the challenge of fallibilism, that we do not have direct access to those of our mental states that do cause our actions, nor are we infallible in such knowledge as we do have of them. (shrink)

arbitrary flowchart programs by introducing a new recursive function for each tag point. In the above example, one obtains: int(x) = int1(x,0), p(n,¤| ,... .ur. ¢(¤.vH(¤.¤,.~¤,) ..... 1 h(n.c¤| ..... ¤r)), w(n.y2l(n.¤l ,.... ul,) ...., y2r(n,a|,_,,¤l_))_..

Intensive investigations into female entrepreneurships are a relatively recent research phenomenon. Advances in the past five years, while dramatic, find the field in an initial stage of paradigm development. Individual studies appear fragmented, unrelated, and seem to describe only small segments of the female entrepreneurial population and more frequently than not apply theoretical tools developed in other areas which are neither reliable or valid. This article examines a number of current research and methodological issues, presents a descriptive analysis of (...) the traditional and modern female entrepreneur, suggests focal areas for research oriented toward the establishment of typologies, models and theory development. (shrink)

AA 180& 'What has to be accepted, the given, is, so one could say, forms of life'. (PI p 226) Compare with Nietzsche. Nietzsche works out a theory of demoralisation. Understanding of the logic of language games makes a difference to those one will play. Compare Heraclitus. The form of life as the will, prana, that which determines whatever it is that is said or believed. The language is merely the medium. Yet this is not something to be set up (...) as a metaphysical theory. It is too particular, and any motive for demolishing it is likely to be sufficient to do so. There is no one way which is true over and above all others. To be able to talk on this plane we need a kind of higher logic. There are those who are desperate to discover the one explanation which is in a sense true. For them, an philosophy which focus on the nature of explanation itself, and thus dissolves the problem will appear irrelevant. Henceforth what is needed is not philosophical statements but logical tools. What we do with these tools is not the business of philosophy. 'one wonders what philosophy would have been like in Britain and the United States if it had not been for the accident of Wittgenstein, for he might not have been on the scene at all…. I meant that he became known to the world of philosophy through the very special circumstances of making a strong impression on Bertrand Russell, and being accepted into the world of philosophy through the bold initiative of Cambridge. Nature is wasteful, and if one wants to get something exceptionally good, one must take great risks about having a great deal that is simply wild. I am sure that both Russell and Cambridge were right to adopt such a policy. Cambridge is possibly the only university in the world that would have touched Wittgenstein at any price. Had it not been for Cambridge, and had it not been for Russell, - and some people would hold that he made an error of judgement- almost certainly nothing more would have been heard of Wittgenstein'.. (shrink)

This paper reports our research concerning dialogue strategies suitable for adoption by a human-computer debating system. We propose a set of strategic heuristics for a computer to adopt to enable it to function as a dialogue participant. In particular, we consider means of assessing the proposed strategy. A system involving two agents in dialogue with each other and a human-agent debate system are constructed and subsequently used to facilitate the evaluations. The evaluations suggest that the proposed strategy can enable the (...) computer to act as an effective dialogue participant. It is anticipated that this work will contribute towards the development of computerised dialogue systems and help to illuminate research issues concerning strategies in dialectical systems. (shrink)

This study uses the ATBEQ, as published by J.F. Preble and A. Reichel (1988) to measure attitudes towards ethical business attitudes held by final year South African Bachelor of Commerce students at Rhodes University. Three samples of students were assessed over three consecutive years of 1989, 1990 and 1991, and results are compared with samples (1988) of American and Israeli students and a sample (1991) of Western Australian students. A significant difference in attitudes was found to exist between the Israeli (...) and South African samples. A factor analysis of the questionnaire identified eleven factors of which seven are theoretically labelled. A revised version of the ATBEQ is suggested which excludes the poorly performing questions. (shrink)

The concept of causation is fundamental to ascribing moral and legal responsibility for events. Yet the relationship between causation and responsibility remains unclear. What precisely is the connection between the concept of causation used in attributing responsibility and the accounts of causal relations offered in the philosophy of science and metaphysics? How much of what we call causal responsibility is in truth defined by non-causal factors? This book argues that much of the legal doctrine on these questions is confused and (...) incoherent, and offers the first comprehensive attempt since Hart and Honoré to clarify the philosophical background to the legal and moral debates. -/- The book first sets out the place of causation in criminal and tort law and outlines the metaphysics presupposed by the legal doctrine. It then analyses the best theoretical accounts of causation in the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and using these accounts criticises many of the core legal concepts surrounding causation - such as intervening causation, forseeability of harm and complicity. It considers and rejects the radical proposals to eliminate the notion of causation from law by using risk analysis to attribute responsibility. The result of the analysis is a powerful argument for revising our understanding of the role played by causation in the attribution of legal and moral responsibility. (shrink)