The field of moral psychology has been confined to the study of social morality, resulting in a nearly exclusive focus on the primary other-regarding virtue of justice. It is argued that an understanding of personal morality, with its concern with self-regarding virtues and the dynamics of intimate relationships, is needed to complement this approach. The importance of personal morality issues to moral psychology is foreshadowed in C. Gilligan's caring ethic. This article expands on Gilligan's schematic portrayal to provide a more (...) complete theoretical understanding of personal morality. Social and personal morality are contrasted to highlight their differences and interrelatedness. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

R. M. HARE takes the following view of the task of moral philosophy, "The function of moral philosophy—or at any rate the hope with which I study it—is that of helping us think better about moral questions by exposing the logical structure of the language in which this thought is expressed." The purpose of this essay is to show that this restriction of ethics to the logical dimensions of moral discourse is grounded in an excessively narrow conception of the resources (...) of human reason. Specifically, I shall argue that a more thoroughgoing grasp of these resources shows that reason has the capacity to move beyond such a purely logical task and to function as a normative source of moral demands. Central to the argument is the contention that the capacities of reason are restricted neither to the discovery of facts, nor to the opening of human discourse to the demands of logic, but include also the capacity to function as a principle constitutive of human agency as capable of self-awareness. I shall try to show that this latter capacity enables reason to play a morally normative role in human life. The argument will be divided into three major components, beginning with a brief expository sketch of Hare’s position aimed at providing the problematic framework for my argument by stating the essentials of his case against naturalism and for prescriptivism. The second component will describe the reflective capacity of reason and will point out that this capacity is at work in Hare’s writings. Finally, the third component will be directed toward showing how reflectivity is capable of founding a normative ethics. (shrink)

A resurgence of interest in virtue ethics has engendered new insight into the fundamental link between selfhood and morality. In contradistinction to the currently ascendant justice-reasoning research paradigm, it appears that a virtue ethics approach to moral psychology provides a theoretical framework which is amenable to the empirical investigation of the nature and formation of the moral self. Six primary features of virtue ethics are delineated with a unifying emphasis throughout on the inextricable link between virtue and moral selfhood. Questions (...) and issues concerning the possibility of a psychology of virtue ethics are directly addressed throughout. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Contingency is the presence of non-actualized possibility in the world. Fatalism is a view of reality on which there is no contingency. Since it is contingency that permits agency, there has traditionally been much interest in contingency. This interest has long been embarrassed by the contention that simple and plausible assumptions about the world lead to fatalism. I begin with an Aristotelian argument as presented by Richard Taylor. Appreciation of this argument has been stultified by a question pertaining to the (...) source of necessity and possibility and a closely related one regarding the nature of metaphysics itself. Answering these questions reveals the crucial issue here, to wit, necessity and possibility in a temporal world. This issue is investigated through an important later criticism of Taylor by David Foster Wallace. Wallace’s critique is significant because it brings to the fore the pivotal notion for understanding contingency in a temporal world, that of synchronic possibility, the idea that incompatible states of affairs are possible at a single moment. This notion provides the basis of distinguishing two systematic accounts of truth, modality and time: two metaphysics of contingency. On one account, Taylor’s Aristotelian argument is straightforwardly valid and compelling; on the other, it is fallacious. In closing, I present reasons why the former account, supporting the Aristotelian views of time and truth, is correct and make some comments to ameliorate this conclusion. (shrink)

The rate of individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. As more attention is paid to end-of-life care for these patients, questions about the use of assisted nutrition and hydration will become more prevalent. Two recent articles that discuss the use of ANH in patients suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease are discussed. The author argues that Pope John Paul II’s designation of medically assisted nutrition and hydration as “ordinary care” does not alleviate the (...) ethical necessity of discerning the benefits and burdens of the procedure for these patients. He argues that tube feeding of patients with advanced Alzheimer’s disease should be considered extraordinary, non-obligatory treatment, but future research is still needed to assess the objective and subjective criteria for making this judgment. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.3 (Autumn 2013): 469–482. (shrink)

The printed images in the frontispiece of modern philosophical books were not simply meant as decorations, but offered in remarkable cases a pictorial synthesis of the ideas expounded in the book. This is true not only of Bacon’s Instauratio magna, on the background of an explicit theoretical reflection on the use of fables and metaphors in the exposition of scientific truth, but also of Hobbes’ Leviathan, notwithstanding Hobbes’ own criticism of metaphorical language. One third impressive example is the “dipintura” of (...) Vico’s La Scienza Nuova, which is the object of a lengthy hermeneutical analysis by the author himself. The paper argues that the prominent importance of the image in these modern classics reflects the search for a more immediate connection between words and things, whose actuality is still debated in XXthcentury philosophy. (shrink)

The X-ray and bulk densities of PdIn alloys have been determined at ambient temperature on samples annealed at 1273 and 1373 K and quenched in water-ice mixtures. From these measurements the vacancy concentrations in this intermetallic phase have been obtained as a function of In concentration at these two temperatures. In addition, a generalized thermodynamic model is presented which considers the existence of antisite and vacancy defects on both sublattices without any dilute solution approximations. This model uses three energy parameters, (...) whose values have been obtained for PdIn using the measured vacancy concentrations and the chemical potentials of In. This model is able to describe all the available vacancy data and is suitable for calculating these values at compositions and temperatures when such data are not available. In addition, the model permits the calculation of the concentrations of the minority point defects. It is shown that dilute-solution approximations, which have invariably been used in this kind of modelling, are unsatisfactory. The present results and their analysis confirm that PdIn is a near-triple-defect type of intermetallic and not a near-Schottky type, as has been claimed recently. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

Reprint of paper first published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1984.