Historical Essays. HISTORY OF A FALLACY The logical fallacy that I am going to discuss here is one that it is quite easy to see by common sense in simple ...

ACT, CONTENT, AND OBJECT THE TITLE I have chosen for this work is a mere label for a set of problems; the controversial views that have historically been ...

In this important contribution to the revived interest in McTaggart's philosophy, Professor Geach clearly expounds the main lines of his metaphysical thought. McTaggart has produced some immensely interesting and significant arguments; in particular, his rigorous reasoning against the trustworthiness of sense perception and the reality of time deserves serious consideration. McTaggart presents his mystical vision of love--the element of our experience that brings us closest to absolute reality--with lucidity and deep conviction. This study will make stimulating reading for all students (...) of philosophy and religion. (shrink)

Philosophy as now pursued in British universities (and many others) is a highly argumentative discipline. The philosophers most studied are not sages who ...

In this collection of essays, which were first delivered as lectures at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein in 1998, distinguished philosopher Peter Geach confronts some of the most difficult issues in philosophy with the precision of a logician and the grace and wit of an accomplished stylist. These essays constitute a significant addition to Professor Geach's esteemed body of work in philosophy, as he addresses not only problems of logic and analytic philosophy, but also (...) of epistemology and ethics. Geach's engaging discussions of human nature, truth, goodness, and love provide probing insight into perennial themes in an appealing, highly readable style which is nevertheless forceful and exacting. Geach knows the subjectivity of his own experience and belief and is able to illuminate that experience and belief by submitting it to a rational and philosophical inquiry. His avowed Catholic perspective is neither a weapon nor a shield. It is an integral part of the sustained, systematic, and constructive approach to philosophy demonstrated in these essays. They will certainly provoke serious reflection even in those inclined to disagree with Geach's conclusions. (shrink)

Planners increasingly rely on collaborative planning models that engage stakeholders to develop plans through consensus-based nego-tiations. While support for using collabora-tive planning models is growing, evaluation of their effectiveness is in its infancy. This paper reports on a case study evaluation, using a multiple criteria evaluation method, of an inno-vative collaborative planning process to pre-pare a strategic land use plan for a region in British Columbia, Canada. The study reveals that the collaborative planning process gen-erated important benefits, including improved relationships (...) and understanding, even though it did not result in consensus agreement on a plan. The outcome also shows that the plan did not result in consensus because some stakeholders were not sufficiently engaged in the process. In addition, an unrealistic timeline was imposed that led to a final offer selection process whose result was ultimately rejected by the government. (shrink)

Conflicts have arisen between communities and operators of confined animal feeding as farms have become bigger in order to maintain their competitiveness. These conflicts have been difficult to resolve because measuring and allocating the benefits and costs of livestock production is difficult. This papers demonstrates a policy tool for promoting compromise whereby the community gets reduced negative impacts from livestock while at the same time continues to benefit from livestock jobs, taxes, and related economic activity. Public economic benefits and public (...) economic costs of confined animal feeding operations are estimated for every farm and affected house in Craven County, North Carolina. The results show public economic benefits of $5.7 million and public economic costs of $2.2 million, but that the ratio of benefits to costs for individual farm-house pairs varies in important ways across the 26 hog farms in Craven County. (shrink)

This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.

The Principle of Credulity---i.e. that if I have an experience apparently of X then in the absence of good reasons to think the experience non-veridical I have evidence that X exists---is an essential premise in many formulations of the argument from religious experience. I defend this use of the principle against objections offered by William Rowe. I argue that experiences of God are checkable. and in ways (epistemically) significantly similar to the ways sensory experiences are checkable. and that treating sensory (...) experiences as Rowe suggests we treat experiences of God demands wholesale scepticism with regard to the senses. (shrink)

A longitudinal survey of business graduates over a four-year period revealed stability over time in their assessments of proposals to improve business ethics except for significantly greater disapproval of government regulation. A comparison of graduates and executives indicate both favor developing general ethical business principles, business ethics courses, and codes of ethics, while disapproving government regulation and participation by religious leaders in ethical norms for business. The mean rankings by business graduates over time of factors influencing ethical conduct show significant (...) declines in school-university training and significant increases for religious training and industry practices. Graduates and executives rank family training as the most important influence and school-university training as least important. The authors conclude that a more careful consideration be given to matching reform proposals and influence factors, and to increasing the depth of change efforts in individual business ethics. (shrink)

Background: In modern society, death has become ‘forbidden’ fed by the medical technology to conquer death. The technological paradigm is challenged by a social-liberal political ideology in postmodern Western societies. The question raised in this study was as follows: Which arguments, attitudes, values and paradoxes between modern and postmodern tendencies concerning treatment and care of older persons with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator appear in the literature? Aims: The aim of this study was to describe and interpret how the field of (...) tension concerning older persons with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator – especially end-of-life issues – has been expressed in the literature throughout the last decade. Methods: Paul Ricoeur’s reflexive interpretive approach was used to extract the meaningful content of the literature involving qualitative, quantitative and normative literature. Analysis and interpretation involved naive reading, structural analysis and critical interpretation. Ethical considerations: The investigation complied with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Findings and discussions: The unifying theme was ‘Normativity under change’. The sub-themes were ‘Death has become legitimate’, ‘The technological imperative is challenged’ and ‘Patients and healthcare professionals need to talk about end-of-life issues’. There seems to be a considerable distance between the normative approach of how practice ought to be and findings in empirical studies. Conclusion: Modern as well as postmodern attitudes and perceptions illustrate contradictory tendencies regarding deactivation of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator and replacement of the implantable cardioverter defibrillator in older persons nearing the end of life. The tendencies challenge each other in a struggle to gain position. On the other hand, they can also complement each other because professionalism and health professional expertise cannot stand alone when the patient’s life is at stake but must be unfolded in an alliance with the patient who needs to be understood and accepted in his vulnerability. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explore the impact of commercial marketing on personal autonomy. Several philosophers argue that marketing conflicts with ideals of autonomy or, at best, is neutral to these ideals. After qualifying our concept of marketing and introducing the distinctions between (i) divergent and convergent marketing and (ii) being autonomous and acting autonomously, we demonstrate the heretofore unnoticed positive impact of marketing on autonomy. Specifically, we argue that (i) convergent marketing has a significant potential to reinforce (...) autonomous action and (ii) divergent marketing has a significant potential to reinforce the state of being autonomous. (shrink)

Commercial food health branding is a challenging branch of marketing because it might, at the same time, promote healthy living and be commercially viable. However, the power to influence individuals’ health behavior and overall health status makes it crucial for marketing professionals to take into account the ethical dimensions of health branding: this article presents a conceptual analysis of potential ethical problems in health branding. The analysis focuses on ethical concerns related to the application of three health brand elements (functional (...) claims, process claims, and health symbols) as well as a number of general concerns that apply to health branding as such. Being a pioneering analysis, this article advances the academic understanding of health branding and provides practitioners with knowledge of important concerns to take into account when marketing health brands. (shrink)

The prospect of using genome technologies to modify the human germline has raised profound moral disagreement but also emphasizes the need for wide-ranging discussion and a well-informed policy response. The Hinxton Group brought together scientists, ethicists, policymakers, and journal editors for an international, interdisciplinary meeting on this subject. This consensus statement formulated by the group calls for support of genome editing research and the development of a scientific roadmap for safety and efficacy; recognizes the ethical challenges involved in clinical reproductive (...) applications of genome editing but, importantly, rejects the idea that human reproductive germline modification is necessarily morally unacceptable; and highlights the importance of meaningful engagement in discussions of genome editing and the development of regulation and oversight mechanisms to govern future uses of such technologies. (shrink)

Much has been written about recidivist punishments, particularly within the area of criminology. However there is a notorious lack of penal philosophical reflection on this issue. This book attempts to fill that gap by presenting the philosopher’s view on this matter as a way of furthering the debate on recidivist punishments.

This paper introduces a class of graphical independence models that is closed under marginalization and conditioning but that contains all DAG independence models. This class of graphs, called maximal ancestral graphs, has two attractive features: there is at most one edge between each pair of vertices; every missing edge corresponds to an independence relation. These features lead to a simple parameterization of the corresponding set of distributions in the Gaussian case.