Philosopher Michael Boylan and theologian James A. Donahue provide a framework_compatible with humanist and theist beliefs_that will enable college and university professors to address a full range of ethical issues as they arise in classroom discussion, both in the academic disciplines and in professional education.

The essays in this book engage the original and controversial claims from Michael Boylan's A Just Society. Each essay discusses Boylan's claims from a particular chapter and offers a critical analysis of these claims. Boylan responds to the essays in his lengthy and philosophically rich reply.

The second edition of _Environmental Ethics _combines a strong theoretical foundation with applications to some of the most pressing environmental problems. Through a mix of classic and new essays, it discusses applied issues such as pollution, climate change, animal rights, biodiversity, and sustainability. Roughly half of the selections are original essays new to this edition. Accessible introduction for beginners, including important established essays and new essays commissioned especially for the volume Roughly half of the selections are original essays new to (...) this edition, including an entirely new chapter on Pollution and climate change and a new section on Sustainability Includes new material on ethical theory as a grounding for understanding the ethical dimensions of the environment, our interactions with it, and our place in it The text incorporates helpful pedagogy, including extensive editorial material, cases, and study questions Includes key information on recent developments in the field Presents a carefully selected set of readings designed to progressively move the reader to competency in subject comprehension and essay writing. (shrink)

As one looks into the crystal ball concerning the future of medicine, what might be seen? One vision is of genetic testing being carried out by medical technicians and then, as a result of this analysis, patients will be given a diagnosis of what is wrong with them. Next, they will be given a list of courses of action based on the tests. Once the list is presented to the patient, then she will choose her treatment. Then a clinician will (...) inoculate her or otherwise administer the genetic therapy. The entire process might go forward without the intervention of a physician! (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

This paper is about the principle that success entails ability, which I call Success. I argue the status of Success is highly puzzling: when we focus on past instances of actually successful action, Success is very compelling; but it is in tension with the idea that true ability claims require an action be in the agent's control. I make the above tension precise by considering the logic of ability. I argue Success is appealing because it is classically equivalent to two (...) genuinely valid inferences, which I call Past Success and Can't-Entails-Won't; but also that Success itself has counterexamples. I show how to invalidate Success while validating Past Success and Can't-Entails-Won't by connecting the meaning of ‘can’ to facts about what is settled or open. I define an operator W with features attributed to ‘will’ in the literature on future contingents. I then give a conditional analysis of ability ascriptions stated with W-conditionals, where "S can A" says, roughly, there’s some action available to S such that if S does it, then W(S A). I show this semantics invalidates Success while still explaining its appeal. (shrink)

This essay proposes a new theory of agentive modals: ability modals and their duals, compulsion modals. After criticizing existing approaches—the existential quantificational analysis, the universal quantificational analysis, and the conditional analysis—it presents a new account that builds on both the existential and conditional analyses. On this account, the act conditional analysis, a sentence like ‘John can swim across the river’ says that there is some practically available action that is such that if John tries to do it, he swims across (...) the river. The essay argues that the act conditional analysis avoids the problems faced by existing accounts of agentive modality and shows how the act conditional analysis can be extended to an account of generic agentive modal claims. The upshot is a new vantage point on the role of agentive modal ascriptions in practical discourse: ability ascriptions serve as a kind of hypothetical guarantee, and compulsion ascriptions as a kind of nonhypothetical guarantee. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus has argued that cases of absorbed bodily coping show that there is no room for self-awareness in flow experiences of experts. In this paper, I argue against Dreyfus’ maxim of vanishing self-awareness by suggesting that awareness of agency is present in expert bodily action. First, I discuss the phenomenon of absorbed bodily coping by discussing flow experiences involved in expert bodily action: merging into the flow; immersion in the flow; emergence out of flow. I argue against the claim (...) that flow experience does not involve an awareness of agency for each of these features, while conceding that fluent agency does not involve self-awareness in the thetic sense. I challenge the assumption that the awareness of fluent agency must be understood in terms of a thetic awareness of agency. Instead, I develop an Anscombean account of the awareness of fluent agency in terms of the phenomenal character of knowing one’s aims. I respond to the challenge that if an Anscombean account of the awareness of agency is to succeed, then agents must be able to answer Anscombean questions. I consider the objection that awareness of agency is not a form of self-awareness by outlining an account of self-awareness as self-synthesis that is distinct from self-perception and self-ascription, but which makes room for self-awareness in expert bodily action. (shrink)

Do Quine and Carnap distort the social nature of inquiry by privileging individual epistemic subjects? This objection is at the heart of Donald Davidson’s claim that Quine fails to grasp the significance of the concept of truth. In Carnap’s case, the objection may be detected in Charles Morris’s call to ground scientific philosophy in semiotics, the science of signs, rather than syntax, the formal investigation of languages. Drawing out the challenge from Morris’s proposal requires examining a neglected influence on this (...) neglected philosopher: his advisor George Herbert Mead’s social theory of mind. I argue that Morris and Davidson can both be understood as demanding that scientific philosophers socialize their conception of objectivity. (shrink)

The literature on counterfactuals is dominated by strict accounts and variably strict accounts. Counterexamples to the principle of Antecedent Strengthening were thought to be fatal to SA; but it has been shown that by adding dynamic resources to the view, such examples can be accounted for. We broaden the debate between VSA and SA by focusing on a new strengthening principle, Strengthening with a Possibility. We show dynamic SA classically validates this principle. We give a counterexample to it and show (...) that extra dynamic resources cannot help SA. We then show VSA accounts for the counterexample if it allows for orderings on worlds that are not almost-connected, and that such an ordering naturally falls out of a Kratzerian ordering source semantics. We conclude that the failure of Strengthening with a Possibility tells strongly against Dynamic SA and in favor of an ordering source-based version of VSA. (shrink)

The Qualitative Thesis says that if you leave open P, then you are sure of if P, then Q just in case you are sure of the corresponding material conditional. We argue the Qualitative Thesis provides compelling reasons to accept a thesis that we call Conditional Locality, which says, roughly, the interpretation of an indicative conditional depends, in part, on the conditional’s local embedding environment. In the first part of the paper, we present an argument—due to Ben Holguín—showing that, without (...) Conditional Locality, the Qualitative Thesis is in tension with a margin for error principle on rational sureness. We show Conditional Locality reconciles the Qualitative Thesis with the margin for error principle. In the second part, we argue the full range of data supports what we call the Strong Qualitative Thesis. Without Conditional Locality, the Strong Qualitative Thesis has unacceptable consequences. But with Conditional Locality, it is tenable. (shrink)

Basic Ethics presents for a wide range of students and other interested readers the questions raised in thinking about ethical problems, the answers offered by moral philosophy, and the means to better integrate both into the reader's world and personal life. It takes up what the author calls a "worldview theory," which shows readers how to begin with the values and understanding of the world that they already possess in order to transition from there to new levels of increasing ethical (...) awareness. Updates to the Third Edition include the more thorough integration of feminist ethics into the principal theoretical traditions, a new chapter on the ethical responsibility to be well informed of current events, expanded coverage of human rights, and additional opportunities on how to use ethical reasoning in thinking about one's own life and about public policy. Key Features: - Links personal values to a philosophical treatment of the major ethical theories - Presents ethics in the context of social/political issues that face our nation and the world - Challenges the student to react to the presented material through critical exercises that may be used as weekly assignments and can form the basis of class discussion and evaluation. - Engages the student to think about underlying issues first before presenting the most popular solutions - Invites the reader to make up her own mind on how to formulate an ethical theory that will help her in her own life - Offers a sixteen-chapter format to fit into most college-semester calendars - Presents an overall structure that establishes foundational problems in ethical theory in the first section of the book that are variously addressed by the different ethical theories in the second section of the book - Highlights key terms to help the reader grapple with issues raised - Includes a final chapter designed to help students comprehend the book in its entirety. Updates to the Third Edition: - Highlights new research on human rights and their relevance to ethical thinking and contemporary moral issues - Integrates feminist ethics into the principal theoretical traditions: virtue ethics, ethical intuitionism, and some versions of deontology - Provides new coverage of "fake news" and the moral responsibility to be well and accurately informed of current events - Expands opportunities to use ethical reasoning in thinking about one's own life and about public policy. (shrink)

Counterfactual skepticism says that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. While few endorse counterfactual skepticism, the precise costs of the view are disputed and not generally well-understood. I have two aims in this paper. My first and primary aim is to establish, on grounds acceptable to all parties, that counterfactual skepticism is not benign. I argue it leads to significant skepticism about the future: if counterfactual skepticism is true, then we can have only very limited knowledge about the future. I give (...) three arguments to this conclusion, taking as premises principles connecting knowledge of indicative conditionals to knowledge of disjunctions; and principles linking knowledge of indicative conditionals to knowledge of counterfactual conditionals.My second aim is to examine the consequences for non-skeptical theories. My arguments indicate that not only are many ordinary counterfactuals true, but that we also know them. How can this be reconciled with the very real tension between counterfactuals and chance? I consider two solutions, one purely epistemic and one contextualist. Together they suggest something like contextualism about knowledge is required to fully resolve the skeptical threat. (shrink)

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

This paper concerns a puzzle about the interaction of epistemic modals and future tense. In cases of predictable forgetfulness, speakers cannot describe their future states of mind with epistemic modals under future tense, but promising theories of epistemic modals do not predict this. In §1, I outline the puzzle. In §2, I argue that it undermines a very general approach to epistemic modals that draws a tight connection between epistemic modality and evidence. In §3, I defend the assumption that tense (...) can indeed scope over epistemic modals. In §4, I outline a new way of determining the domain of quantification of epistemic modals: epistemic modals quantify over the worlds compatible with the information accumulated within a certain interval. Information loss can change which interval is relevant for determining the domain. In §5, I defend the view from some objections. In §6, I explore the connections between my view of epistemic modality and circumstantial modality. (shrink)

As a result of this case study, additional questions arise. These can be cast into at least three groups. The first concerns the development of critical empiricism in the ancient world: a topic of much interest in our own century, expecially with regard to the work of the logical empiricists. Many of the same arguments are present in the ancient world and were hotly debated from the Hippocratic writers through and beyond Galen. Some of the ways in which Galen reacts (...) to Hippocratic and Aristotelian influences may, in part, be explained by Galen's own posture as a so-called Dogmatist. Both the Empirics and the Methodists offered alternative viewpoints on the place, role, and limits of observation in biomedical research. Though I have written on this relationship in the Hippocratic writers and Aristotle,44 it remains to be discussed in detailed fashion just how critical empiricism acted in Galen's evaluation of biomedical problems (aporiai). Contrasts between Galen and his predecessors might further clarify this issue both as a historical question and as it affects the construction of biological theory.The second area explores the question of how one develops comprehensive theories. In this respect Galen follows Aristotle's methodology rather closely. Both look at what theories are available to them and then systematically review the problems raised, at the same time refuting what they find inadequate. This is an effective strategy, for it permits utilizing the best features of earlier work to fashion a new whole. Indeed, Galen himself seems to attribute his use of such a methodology to his “ecletic” medical and philosophical training. Both Aristotle and Galen endeavor to employ techniques of theory integration. That is, they use aspects of theories they have already espoused to deal with new problems. This suggests the emergence of formal, logical coherence as an element in theory evaluation. The obvious drawback is that it can cause mistakes in one area to be repeated and ingrained in other areas. Such errors, because they are at the very core of an explanatory framework, may take centuries to correct. Future studies may shed light on how theory integration acts both in a positive and in a negative way.Finally, this case study offers a glimpse of how science progresses. Even though the advances in medical technology were comparatively minor, there is a great deal more sophistication in the conception theoreis of Aristotle and Galen than was present in the Hippocratic writers. Some of this (in Galen's case) had to do with increased anatomic and physiological knowledge, but most, I believe, is due to the evolution of scientific knowledge. If further work were done specifically on this question, it might document more completely how scientific knowledge on a specific topic evolves. The mode of advancement is primarily through gradual refinement of the types of questions being asked by these ancient authors, and the ramifications of their answers.Ancient theories of conception offer a fine case study in the history and philosophy of how a theory begins the develops. I have tried to suggest some interrelationships among the more important theories, as they focused upon Aristotle's own conception theory. There has been renewed interest in such cases in recent years. It is my hope that future specialized studies will increase our knowledge of method and practice in these important case studies and thereby augment our understanding of the genesis and application of biological theories. (shrink)

Know how and ability have a seemingly fraught relationship. I deepen the tension here, by arguing for two new pieces of data concerning know how and ability. First, know how ascriptions have two distinct readings that differ in their entailments to ability: one entails ability, the other does not. Second, in certain cases, the indeterminacy of certain ability claims infects both readings of know how claims. No existing accounts of the relationship between know how and ability captures both data points, (...) I argue; but a certain kind of intellectualism has special resources to account for them. Ascriptions of knowledge of infinitival questions give rise to a distinctive kind of context-sensitivity specific to infinitivals. I show how on an intellectualist view where, very roughly, knowing how to do something is knowing an answer to an infinitival question about your abilities, this context-sensitivity accounts for the relationship between know how and ability. (shrink)

Every Thing Must Go aruges that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it ...

A Just Society represents a complete account of Boylan's original worldview theory of ethics and social philosophy. In the book Boylan sets out the foundation and application of the personal worldview imperative and the shared community worldview imperative . These form the structure for a rights-based deontological theory. Throughout, the book employs narrative devices and contemporary examples that make a contribution to ethical and political theory as well as grounding an original approach to public philosophy.

We propose a new analysis of ability modals. After briefly criticizing extant approaches, we turn our attention to the venerable but vexed conditional analysis of ability ascriptions. We give an account that builds on the conditional analysis, but avoids its weaknesses by incorporating a layer of quantification over a contextually supplied set of actions.

We applaud the spirit of MacNeilage's attempts to better explain the evolution and cortical control of speech by drawing on the vast literature in nonhuman primate neurobiology. However, he oversimplifies motor cortical fields and their known individual functions to such an extent that he undermines the value of his effort. In particular, MacNeilage has lumped together the functional characteristics across multiple mesial and lateral motor cortex fields, inadvertantly creating two hypothetical centers that simply may not exist.

本书讲述了一群试图解释中国哲学及其艺术词语问题的比较哲学家之长达20年之久的事情。包括“孟子人性理论的背景”、“孟子的人性论”等。.

Sebastian Rödl's Self-Consciousness and Objectivity is one of the most original and thought-provoking books in philosophy of mind for the last several years. An ambitious defence of absolute idealism, Rödl rejects the idea that reality is simply something given, and instead advances the position that all reality is accessible to thought because reality is already included in judgment. In this outstanding collection, a roster of international contributors critically examine the significance of Rödl's arguments and take the themes of his book (...) in new directions. The volume concludes with an extensive response by Sebastian Rödl to his critics, making it essential reading for those interested in contemporary debates in analytic philosophy, philosophy of mind and philosophical idealism. (shrink)

This essay will argue for ethical procedures governing criminal profiling. A model based upon psychological/behavioral data, witness data, and forensic profiling data is sketched out. This model fits the legitimate uses of criminal profiling as an investigation procedure. Racial profiling as a primary sorting factor does not fit the preferred model and has significant downsides and so is rejected as a primary sorting mechanism in criminal investigation procedure.

This essay begins with a current case involving racial profiling and DNA testing. The two combine to raise some troubling issues involving the use of each in police investigation. It is argued that racial profiling is unethical and ought to be avoided and that DNA testing on general populations of innocent people is fraught with dangers.

This essay begins with a current case involving racial profiling and DNA testing. The two combine to raise some troubling issues involving the use of each in police investigation. It is argued that racial profiling is unethical and ought to be avoided and that DNA testing on general populations of innocent people is fraught with dangers.

Written by well-known professor and author Michael Boylan, Morality and Global Justice is an accessible examination of the moral and normative underpinnings of ...

This book examines the origins of ancient Greek science using the vehicles of blood, blood vessels, and the heart. Careful attention to biomedical writers in the ancient world, as well as to the philosophical and literary work of writers prior to the Hippocratic authors, produce an interesting story of how science progressed and the critical context in which important methodological questions were addressed. The end result is an account that arises from debates that are engaged in and "solved" by different (...) writers. These stopping points form the foundation for Harvey and for modern philosophy of biology. Author Michael Boylan sets out the history of science as well as a critical evaluation based upon principles in the contemporary canon of the philosophy of science--particularly those dealing with the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Organ procurement organization (OPO) staff play an essential role in the facilitation of organ donation as they guide family members and loved ones of dying patients through the donation process. Throughout the donation process, OPO staff must assume the role of a dual advocate, considering both the interests of the donor (which often include the wishes of the donor’s family) and the interests of potential recipient(s). The benefits of this role are well established; however, minimal literature exists on the ways (...) this role can cause moral distress in OPO staff, who frequently face scenarios in which adhering to the wishes of a donor family may compromise donation potential but failing to honor donor family requests may result in further emotional burden for the family. Given the frequency with which these ethically complex situations exist during donation, OPO staff are at heightened risk for experiencing moral distress and burnout, yet they are seldom acknowledged in the existing moral distress literature. As a result, it is unclear whether the current practices available to mitigate moral distress are beneficial for this population. (shrink)

This essay will discuss some of the ways that narrative works to promote philosophy, called fictive narrative philosophy. The strategy is to discuss the ways that direct and indirect discourse work and to show why indirect discourse fills an important void that direct discourse cannot fulfill. In the course of this examination several famous narrative-based philosophers are examined such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Murdoch, Johnson, and Camus. These practitioners used the indirect method to make plausible to readers the vision (...) that they were presenting. This article also offers some constraints in this process. (shrink)