Medicine is unique among professions and trades, offering a 'product' which is unlike any other. The consequences for patients of being attracted by misleading information to an inappropriate doctor or service are such as to demand special restrictions on the advertising of doctors' services. Furthermore, health care in the UK is organised around the 'referral system', whereby general practitioners refer patients to specialists when necessary rather than have specialists accept patients on self-referral. But this need not inhibit the provision of (...) helpful factual information to those who need it. Recent policy changes by the General Medical Council considerably broaden the scope for general practitioners to make factual information of their services available to local people, while safeguarding the public against promotional activities which are designed to increase demand for certain kinds of specialist service by playing upon individuals' fears and lack of medical knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that calls for widespread implementation of ethics measurement systems would be better informed by institutional economic analysis. Specifically, we assert that proponents of such systems must first recognize and understand the institutions that potentially impede such efforts. We identify two potential institutional impediments to measuring ethics and social responsibility. First, we suggest that neoclassical economics, supported by traditional business education and legal precedent, serves to reinforce the notion that shareholders are the primary corporate constituency group. (...) Such an emphasis on the needs of shareholders severely hinders implementation of measurement systems that address the needs of multiple stakeholder groups. Second, we argue that the threat of litigation may constrain corporate managers from measuring and considering ethics and corporate social responsibility matters. In particular, managers may be reluctant to quantify various ethical concerns if the resulting measurements could be used as evidence against the corporation in a lawsuit. (shrink)

Weiss, Propen, and Reid gather a diverse group of scholars to analyze the growing obsolescence of the human-object dichotomy in today's world. In doing so, Design, Mediation, and the Posthuman brings together diverse disciplines to foster a dialog on significant technological issues pertinent to philosophy, rhetoric, aesthetics, and science.

Most philosophers of emotion endorse a compound account of the emotions: emotions are wholes made of parts; or, as I prefer to put it, emotions are mental states that supervene on other (mental) states. The goal of this paper is to ascertain how the intentionality of these subvening members relates to the intentionality of the emotions. Towards this end, I proceed as follows. First, I discuss the problems with the account Justin D'Arms and Daniel Jacobson offer of the intentionality of (...) the emotions; I argue their account is fundamentally misguided by virtue of being motivated by a misunderstanding of the nature of propositional attitudes. Second, I argue against Peter Goldie's claim that an affective component of an emotion contributes to its intentionality. Third, I offer my own compound account of emotions. I argue (1) emotions are mental states that supervene on other mental states, (2) the mental states that constitute the subvenience base of emotion can have nonconceptual and/or conceptual representational content, and (3) an emotion's intentionality supervenes on (but is often not identical to) the intentionality of only one of its subvening members, specifically, the evaluative representation. (shrink)

There is a difference between an object's being good simpliciter and an object's being good of its kind, and the vast majority of philosophers have supposed that it is the former variety of goodness that is relevant to ethics. I argue that one may be a meta-ethical realist while employing the notion of good of a kind to the exclusion of good simpliciter; I call such a view kindism. I distinguish between two varieties of kindism, explicate the details of one (...) of those varieties, and defend kindism against possible objections. (shrink)

Nietzsche, Genealogy, In the preface of On the Genealogy of Morality (GM), Nietzsche tells us the third treatise of his book is an “interpretation” of the aphorism placed at the beginning of that treatise. Much work – primarily by John Wilcox, Maudemarie Clark, and Christopher Janaway – has gone into proving that the aphorism is not the quotation from Zarathustra placed at the beginning of the treatise, but that it is Section 1 (perhaps minus the last few lines) of the (...) third treatise. I am in agreement on this point. But it seems the limited work that has been done on explaining in what sense the third treatise is an interpretation of the first aphorism is fundamentally misguided. In particular, we do not have a grasp of what Nietzsche means by ‘interpretation’. This ought to strike us as a significant hole in the literature, for it leaves misunderstood the longest of the three treatises that comprise what is widely regarded as Nietzsche’s most important and extended analysis of morality. -/- The goal of this paper is to fill that lacuna by illustrating 1) the inadequacies of a theory of what Nietzsche means to be doing in the third treatise, 2) what the right – that is, Nietzsche’s – understanding of ‘interpretation’ is, 3) how we ought to approach the third treatise, and 4) the particular impacts this approach has on our reading of the third treatise. In the course of proving these theses other influential readings of Nietzsche are challenged, in particular those concerning Nietzsche’s conception of the will to power and his perspectivism. (shrink)

In the Grundlagen , Frege offers eight main arguments, together with a series of more minor supporting arguments, against Mill’s view that numbers are “properties of external things”. This paper reviews all eight of these arguments, arguing that none are conclusive.

Edited book on the prospects of non-Platonist realism in the philosophy of mathematics. Physicalism holds that mathematics studies properties realised or realisable in the physical world. This collection of papers has its origin in a conference held at the University of Toronto in June of 1988. The theme of the conference was Physicalism in Mathematics: Recent Work in the Philosophy of Mathematics. At the conference, papers were read by Geoffrey Hellman (Minnesota), Yvon Gauthier (Montreal), Michael Hallett (McGill), Hartry Field (USC), (...) Bob Hale (Lancaster & St Andrew's), Alasdair Urquhart (Toronto) and Penelope Maddy (Irvine). This volume supplements updated versions of six of those papers with contributions by Jim Brown (Toronto), John Bigelow (La Trobe), John Burgess (Princeton), Chandler Davis (Toronto), David Papineau (Cambridge), Michael Resnik (North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Peter Simons (Salzburg) and Crispin Wright (St Andrews & Michigan). Together they provide a vivid, expansive snapshot of the exciting work which is currently being carried out in philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

The Many Faces of Patriotism debate the consequences of the 21st century's patriotic resurgence, examining it both in theoretical and comparative terms that draw on examples of patriotism from ancient Greece to post-apartheid South Africa.

Jack and Jill have both applied for the same entry-level position at a local university. After interviewing the leading candidates, the members of the hiring committee agree that both Jack and Jill have all the necessary qualifications for appointment to the position. Both have the required education and training. Both have strong letters of recommendation from their Ph.D. supervisors and from their current employers. Both are similarly experienced and both are potentially capable of making important future contributions to their chosen (...) discipline. The members of the hiring committee also agree that Jack and Jill are superior to all other applicants for the position. In short, in the judgment of the hiring committee, they are the two best qualified candidates and both meet their potential employer's expectations concerning a successful applicant. Yet neither Jack nor Jill is clearly superior to the other. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Two important debates have characterized mainstream epistemology in recent years. The first is the debate between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists. The second is the debate over the details of a naturalized epistemology. Both debates have meant that traditional concepts of rationality and justification are now understood in a new light. Both debates have helped focus attention on the future direction of epistemology, its goals and its limitations.

Consider the following sentence schema:This sentence entails that ϕ.Call a sentence which is obtained from this schema by the substitution of an arbitrary, contingent sentence, s, for ϕ, the sentence CS. Thus, This sentence entails that s.Now ask the following question: Is CS true?One sentence classically entails a second if and only if it is impossible for both the first to be true and the second to be false. Thus ‘Xanthippe is a mother’ entails ‘Xanthippe is female’ if and only (...) if it is impossible for both ‘Xanthippe is a mother’ to be true and ‘Xanthippe is female’ to be false. CS makes a claim about a purported entailment. Thus, CS is true if and only if it is impossible for both the sentence it mentions as entailing a second to be true and the sentence it mentions as being entailed by the first to be false. In other words, CS is true if and only if it is impossible for both CS to be true and s to be false. In yet other words, CS is false if and only if it is possible for both CS to be true and s to be false. (shrink)

NOTES: Based on the book Socrates on trial written by Andrew Irvine and published by the University of Toronto Press. Performed at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, May 31-June 7, 2008. CONTENTS: Trailer, Who was Socrates?, Selected scenes, The production, Credits. UBC Library Catalogue Permanent URL: http://resolve.library.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/catsearch?bid=3956307.