David Lewis'sPrincipal Principle states that our credence in a single case follows from the general probability of all such cases. Against this stands the Challenge Argument – to show that the inference is justified. Recent law-to-chance, Bayesian, and propensity theories of probability take up the challenge – but, I argue, fall short. Rather, we should understand propensity via Aristotle's analysis of spontaneity and probabilistic reasoning via theAnti-PPand the practice ofbundling one offs, where forced bad-odds one offsilluminate how extensive a role (...) luck plays in our lives. (shrink)

Butler refused to be satisfied with just one leading principle, or rational basis for human action, but in the end settled for three: self-love, to provide for our ‘own private good’; benevolence, to consider ‘the good of our fellow creatures’ ; and conscience, ‘to preside and govern’ over our lives as a whole. By so doing he hoped to ensure a completeness to our ethical scheme, so that nothing would be omitted from our moral deliberations. Yet by so doing he (...) also exposed himself to severe criticism. For any such appeal to a plurality of principles, as Green remarked, is ‘repugnant both to the philosophic craving for unity, and to that ideal of “singleness of heart” which we have been accustomed to associate with the highest virtue’. More specifically, by appealing to a plurality of principles Butler faced the charges of circularity, where the principles come to define and defend each other; inconsistency, where the principles ‘take turns’ at being primary and hence render each other superfluous; and incompleteness, where the ‘primary principle’ is itself undefined or undefended. As the tale has been told Butler stands accused of all three of these errors. (shrink)

Butler refused to be satisfied with just one leading principle, or rational basis for human action, but in the end settled for three: self-love, to provide for our ‘own private good’; benevolence, to consider ‘the good of our fellow creatures’ ; and conscience, ‘to preside and govern’ over our lives as a whole. By so doing he hoped to ensure a completeness to our ethical scheme, so that nothing would be omitted from our moral deliberations. Yet by so doing he (...) also exposed himself to severe criticism. For any such appeal to a plurality of principles, as Green remarked, is ‘repugnant both to the philosophic craving for unity, and to that ideal of “singleness of heart” which we have been accustomed to associate with the highest virtue’. More specifically, by appealing to a plurality of principles Butler faced the charges of circularity, where the principles come to define and defend each other; inconsistency, where the principles ‘take turns’ at being primary and hence render each other superfluous; and incompleteness, where the ‘primary principle’ is itself undefined or undefended. As the tale has been told Butler stands accused of all three of these errors. (shrink)

The questions suggested by the term "multiculturalism" range far and wide, embracing: questions of inclusion; questions of criteria; questions of self-identity; and questions of the meaning of multiculturalism. In this essay I provide a framework: that allows us to begin a discussion that might answer such questions; that illuminates why it is that such a modest aim is the most we can hope for at this time; and that provides an understanding of what we can do in a multicultural world (...) in order to illuminate what we should do. This framework will reject both the idea of toleration as found in Berlin’s conception of human choice and will speak of as maximal multiculturalism, an orientation that is found in John Milton’s idea of truth as variegated and that sees multiculturalism as a great good. These views are plagued by at least three paradoxes that are really inconsistencies. In their place I develop the idea of a mitigated multiculturalism based on fear rather than on any ideal or vision, and with this a distinction between positive and negative toleration. Negative toleration proves to parallel a classic Hobbesianism, which while an unwelcome result, paradoxically, provides further direction and reason for hope that mitigated multiculturalism can and must be surpassed. (shrink)

(1) Rupert Read charges that Rawls culpably overlooks the politicized Euthyphro: Do we accept our political perspective because it is right or is it right because we accept it? (2) This charge brings up the question of the deficiency dilemma: Do others disagree with us because of our failures or theirs? —where the two dilemmas appear to be independent of each other and lead to the questions of the logic of deficiency, moral epistemic deficiency, epistemic peers, and the hardness of (...) philosophy. (3) In reply, on an expanded principle of charity Rawls does not overlook the Euthyphro but rather offers ground-breaking solutions to it, (4) that nonetheless trip on the independent bootstrap (5)—as also do Dreben and Nussbaum. (6) Furthermore, Rawls's ' burdens of judgment' seek to bypass the necessity of moral epistemic deficiency and (7) suggest a wider framework for understanding disagreement that sees disagreement as arising from inquiry being in development, unpredictable and uncertain. (8) This wider framework entails that disagreement does not mean moral epistemic deficiency and (9) that our responses to the Euthyphro are 'too soon to say'. (shrink)