This paper examines questions regarding the nature of and need for a certain species of equality within the overall design of Plato’s prescriptive political philosophy, with particular reference to the Republic and Laws. A common, traditional, reasonable and yet incomplete interpretation of Plato relies on the notion that Plato’s political theory and, more particularly, his prescriptions for the city of speech and the second best city rest on an abiding belief in the need for social inequality and political hierarchy, and (...) thereby rejecting in the essence of things equality as a viable political concept. But perhaps a second look at Plato is in order here. This essay attempts to explore those elements of Plato’s conceptual and prescriptive theory that reflect a different attitude toward hierarchy, one that cannot be regarded as egalitarian in any modern sense of the word, but that might evince a facet of Plato that is at the very least open to the possibility of a more egalitarian view of politics and at most directed at promoting a more egalitarian politics that has been largely unrecognized by many of Plato’s readers and overlooked by most of his commentators. (shrink)

Readers of Plato’s Republic are familiar with Glaucon and his role in prodding Socrates to strengthen his argument throughout the dialogue. It has been asserted on more than one occasion that Glaucon epitomizes the quality of spiritedness, and thus throughout the dialogue he is patiently guided by the taming hand of Socrates to a fuller awareness of justice and virtue. This paper will argue that Glaucon, as ‘Spiritedness Incarnate’, provides needed insight and important encouragement that strengthens Socrates’ positions in a (...) way that doesmore than simply ask those questions that enable the philosopher’s efforts to share his own wisdom. Rather, Glaucon, as Socrates’ younger companion, serves a role vital to the Republic’s overall achievement in several ways. Above all, the relationship between Socrates, Glaucon and the other participants of the dialogue together reflect the unity of the soul as the many become one. (shrink)

Introduction -- Structuring principles -- On right -- From interest and pleasure to the good in-itself -- Good in-itself and the rights of the ensouled person -- The good and friendship in the community of free souls -- The rehabilitation of politics through the recovery of its essence.

Leaving Safe Harbors offers radical readings of conventional literature, and makes creative use of philosophy, literature, film and popular culture as it maps out a future for progressive education. Award winning author Dennis Carlson re-scripts the myths embedded in the works of Plato, Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger and analyzes them alongside such popular phenomena as Ridley Scott's Bladerunner and the British Punk group, The Sex Pistols. In his fluid writing style, he lucidly illustrates how these modern "myths" may (...) serve as models for a new way to think about education, and breathes new life into canonical texts on learning. (shrink)

Presenting the first book-length study in English of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, this work takes a fresh look at this seminal text on false reasoning.

It is commonly understood that in its focus on rights and obligations law is centrally concerned with organising responsibility. In defining how obligations are created, in contract or property law, say, or imposed, as in tort, public, or criminal law, law and legal institutions are usually seen as society’s key mode of asserting and defining the content and scope of responsibilities. This book takes the converse view: legal institutions are centrally involved in organising irresponsibility. Particularly with respect to the production (...) of large-scale harms – including extensive human rights violations, forms of colonialism, or environmental or nuclear devastation – and in opposition to conventional understandings of responsibility in law, morality and politics, the book provides a detailed analysis of the ways in which legal institutions – their practices, concepts, and categories – themselves operate as much to deflect responsibility for harms suffered as they do to acknowledge them. Drawing on a series of case studies from local, national, and global concerns the book analyses how law facilitates dispersals and disavowals of responsibility, and it shows how it does so in consistent and patterned ways. In assessing how this ‘organised irresponsibility’ operates, and what its consequences are for both legal analysis and society generally, a thoroughgoing re-evaluation of law’s methods, operation, and consequences is required. At stake is nothing less than a fundamental re-assessment of the role of modern law in the production and legitimation of human suffering. This innovative and interdisciplinary book provides a sustained challenge to conventional thinking about law and legal institutions. It will be of major interest to those working in law, political and legal theory, sociology and moral philosophy. (shrink)

This manuscript consists of two parts, Part I. and Part II. Part I., written by the same author and titled "THE PERSECUTED CHURCH: THE CLANDESTINE CATHOLIC CHURCH (ECCLESIA SILENTII) IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA DURING COMMUNISM 1948 – 1991," was published in the January issue of the Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe (OPREE), ISSN: 2693-2148.2 It includes a brief historical overview and introduces the Clandestine Catholic Church (Ecclesia Silentii) in Czechoslovakia during Communism from 1948 to 1991. Part II. directly follows Part (...) I. and continues with the following sections: Results, Discussion, Conclusion, and References. Part II considers the collapse of the Czech Roman Catholic Church and the end destruction of the Clandestine Catholic Church by the Holy See, along with the process of secularization after the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia from 1991 to 2021. (shrink)

We will study patterns which occur when considering how Σ 1 -elementary substructures arise within hierarchies of structures. The order in which such patterns evolve will be seen to be independent of the hierarchy of structures provided the hierarchy satisfies some mild conditions. These patterns form the lowest level of what we call patterns of resemblance . They were originally used by the author to verify a conjecture of W. Reinhardt concerning epistemic theories 449–460; Ann. Pure Appl. Logic, to appear), (...) but their relationship to axioms of infinity and usefulness for ordinal analysis were manifest from the beginning. This paper is the first part of a series which provides an introduction to an extensive program including the ordinal analysis of set theories. Future papers will conclude the introduction and establish, among other things, that notations we will derive from the patterns considered here represent the proof-theoretic ordinal of the theory KPℓ 0 or, equivalently, Π 1 1 −CA 0. (shrink)

Cognitive science proposes that we have evolved to build mental maps of the world not according to its actual, physical nature, but according to what allows us to thrive. In other words, our individual and collective realities are fictions - carefully constructed to enable us to maintain our particular perspectives. It used to be that our fictions were rooted to reasonably solid things: to people, places and memories. Today, in an age of online personas, alternative truths, constant surveillance and an (...) increasingly hysterical news cycle, our realities are becoming more flimsy and more vulnerable than ever before. Ours is now a zoomed-in perspective, where the backstage is centre stage. We are both camera person and subject, with new powers and new weaknesses. Our personal and political spheres are dangerously merging. How will the form and grammar of our feelings have to change in this over-exposed environment? Should any of our stories remain secret? How are these phenomena changing the way we live? How do we maintain a sense of reality in an increasingly fantastic world? Picnic Comma Lightning is an innovative examination of the nature of reality in the twenty-first century, one that explores the key ethical, political and neurological forces contouring our inner selves, but also the old influences of grief and desire, memory and imagination. In it, award-winning author Laurence Scott provides a lively and accessible new philosophy for this epoch in Western civilisation, one that will change the way you see the world, and your place within it."--Publisher description. (shrink)

A principal aim of the branch of ethics called ‘population theory’ or ‘population ethics’ is to find a plausible welfarist axiology, capable of comparing total outcomes with respect to value. This has proved an exceedingly difficult task. In this paper I shall state and discuss two ‘trilemmas’, or choices between three unappealing alternatives, which the population ethicist must face. The first trilemma is not new. It originates with Derek Parfit's well-known ‘Mere Addition Paradox’, and was first explicitly stated by Yew-Kwang (...) Ng. I shall argue that one horn of this trilemma is less unattractive than Parfit and others have claimed. The second trilemma, which is a kind of mirror image of the first, appears hitherto to have gone unnoticed. Apart from attempting to resolve the two trilemmas, I shall suggest certain features which I believe a plausible welfarist axiology should possess. The details of this projected axiology will, however, be left open. (shrink)

Scholars and experts focus on the larger moral context around the controversies over scientific research and technological innovations with accessible essays, original to this volume, which emphasize ethical deliberation rather than adversarial debate.

African Philosophy and St Thomas Aquinas have both been taught in African universities, but the engagement between the continent’s indigenous philosophical tradition and the Catholic intellectual tradition’s preeminent strand, has not been thorough. Presupposing that plural philosophical traditions contribute to the search to better understand, this research embarks upon a comparative analysis of the perspectives of the African ubuntu philosophy and Thomist philosophical conceptualisations of human becoming and being. Through analysis of dimensions of both traditions, it is contended that human (...) fulness arises through relationality. It is argued that in centring on the interpersonal encounter and the consequent recognition of another’s being through mutual engagement, these philosophical traditions open to each other. Further, both traditions contribute toward the ontology of personhood in ubuntu and the good of mutual indwelling, respectively. (shrink)

“Natural logic” was proposed by Lewis Henry Morgan as the engine of cultural evolution, concluding that the “course and manner” of cultural development “was predetermined, as well as restricted within narrow limits of divergence, by the natural logic of the human mind.” This essay argues that Morgan’s conception of natural logic aids the project of settler colonialism. Rather than being a false account of human agency, however, it is a conception of natural logic that is produced through the systematic narrowing (...) of possibilities for agency, human, and otherwise. This narrowed logic is thus only a part of a differently conceived logic of agency that is also general and normative. The discussion proceeds in four sections: first, a presentation of Morgan’s conception of natural logic and its origins; second, an analysis of four colonizing implications of Morgan’s view; third, examples of further developments of natural logic in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in the work structuralist and post-structuralist theorists; and, last, a brief introduction of a decolonial logic that provides a broader alternative conception of the structure of agency, human, and otherwise, and that avoids the oppressive effects of the reductionism of the natural logic received from Morgan and his successors. (shrink)

The essays in this volume, first published in 1986, examine the philosophical foundations of social choice theory. This field, a modern and sophisticated outgrowth of welfare economics, is best known for a series of impossibility theorems, of which the first and most crucial was proved by Kenneth Arrow in 1950. That has often been taken to show the impossibility of democracy as a procedure for making collective decisions. However, this interpretation is challenged by several of the contributors here. Other central (...) issues discussed in the volume include the possibility of making interpersonal comparisons of utility, the question of whether all preferences are equally to be valued, and the normative individualism underlying the theoretical tradition. Criticisms of social choice theory are advanced and suggestions for alternative approaches are developed. (shrink)

To what extent should parents be able to choose the kind of child they have? The unfortunate phrase 'designer baby' has become familiar in debates surrounding reproduction. As a reference to current possibilities the term is misleading, but the phrase may indicate a societal concern of some kind about control and choice in the course of reproduction. Typically, people can choose whether to have a child. They may also have an interest in choosing, to some extent, the conditions under which (...) they do so, such as whether they have a child with a serious disability or disease. The purpose of this book is to explore the difficult and controversial question of the appropriate ethical and legal extent of reproductive autonomy in this context. The book examines ethical, legal and public policy issues in prenatal screening, prenatal diagnosis (PND), selective abortion and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). It explores the ethics of these selection practices and the ability of current ethical guidelines and legal mechanisms, including the law on selective abortion and wrongful birth, to deal with advances in genetic and other knowledge in these areas. Unlike in the United States, in England the relevant law is not inherently rights-based, but the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 inevitably raises questions about the proper scope of reproductive autonomy in this context. The implications of the analysis are considered for the development of relevant law, public policy and ethical guidelines and will be of interest to academics in medical law and ethics, health professionals, lawyers, those working on public policy and students with an interest in these issues. (shrink)

Examines the use of drug therapy and other medical techniques to treat psychiatric illness, describing the major mental illnesses and discussing the effects of specific medications.

In Section 1, I rehearse some arguments for the claim that morality should be ``action-guiding'', and try to state the conditions under which a moral theory is in fact action-guiding. I conclude that only agents who are cognitively and conatively ``ideal'' are in general able to use a moral theory as a guide to action. In Sections 2 and 3, I discuss whether moral ``actualism'' implies that morality cannot be action-guiding even for ideal agents. If actualism is true, an ideal (...) agent will know about her own future actions. Since such foreknowledge is often thought to be incompatible with deliberation, and since action-guidance presupposes the possibility of deliberation, there is an apparent difficulty in combining actualism with the requirement of action-guidance. In opposition to an argument by Jan Österberg, I try to show that actualism and action-guidance are in fact compatible. (shrink)

We apply the analysis that we have developed over the course of several publications on the significance of ignorance for decision-making, especially in surrogate (and, thus, in political) contexts, to political decision-making, such as it has been, during the COVID-19 pandemic (see Scheall 2019; Crutchfield and Scheall 2019; Scheall and Crutchfield 2020; Scheall 2020). Policy responses to the coronavirus constitute a case study of the problem of policymaker ignorance. We argue that political responses to the virus cannot be explained by (...) assuming that the interests of policymakers were at loggerheads with those of their constituents at the beginning of the crisis. In order to explain the responses of policymakers, it is necessary to recognize the effects of relevant ignorance on their incentives to pursue different policy objectives. We discuss the knowledge that policymakers required at the start of the pandemic in order to deliberately realize the goal of limiting overall human suffering and the spontaneous forces that could have facilitated the realization of this goal. The problem of policymaker ignorance implies that policymakers have not earnestly pursued the goal of limiting overall suffering due to the novel coronavirus, but have repeatedly resorted to the pursuit of relatively less epistemically burdensome goals. The problem of policymaker ignorance explains why policymakers have focused primarily on limiting one kind of suffering – physical suffering due to the virus – and have mostly ignored related kinds of suffering, i.e., the economic, sociological, psychological, and physical suffering caused by policies to limit physical suffering from the virus. The problem of policymaker ignorance also helps to explain why policymakers relied on the relatively blunt instrument of economic lockdown rather than more focused protection policies, and why they continue to resort to lockdowns, despite the emerging scientific evidence of their ineffectiveness at mitigating physical suffering due to the virus. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In 2010,Business Ethics Quarterlypublished ten articles that considered the potential contributions to business ethics research arising from recent scholarship in a variety of philosophical and social scientific fields (strategic management, political philosophy, restorative justice, international business, legal studies, ethical theory, ethical leadership studies, organization theory, marketing, and corporate governance and finance). Here we offer short responses to those articles by members ofBusiness Ethics Quarterly’s editorial board and editorial team.

This paper criticizes the consequentialist theory recently put forward by Fred Feldman. I argue that this theory violates two crucial requirements. Another theory, proposed by Peter Vallentyne, is similarly flawed. Feldman's basic ideas could, however, be developed into a more plausible theory. I suggest one possible way of doing this.

Scott Yenor argues that David Hume's reputation as a skeptic is greatly exaggerated. In David Hume's Humanity, Yenor shows how Hume's skepticism is a moment leading Hume to defend a philosophy that is grounded in the inescapable assumptions of common life. Humane virtues reflect the proper reaction to the complex mixture of human faculties that define the human condition. These gentle virtues best find their home in the modern commercial republic, of which England is the leading example. Hume's defense (...) of both common life philosophy and humanity are, however, flawed by his secretly dogmatic assumptions about the nature of history and his Enlightened approach to religious teachings and psychology. This study makes the case for Hume's manner of grounding philosophy in common life is essential to any reinvigoration of the humanities. It ultimately holds that Hume's practice of that philosophy is seriously flawed, but that a more philosophic philosophy of common life is available. (shrink)

The article argues that bribery is wrong because it violates fundamental notion of equality and it undermines the vitality of the institutions affected.

Starting at the beginning: what's so good about being good? -- Theological ethics: where does morality come from? -- Cultural views of morality: why can't we make up our own moral rules for ourselves? -- Making ethical decisions: when I'm in a moral dilemma, what do I do? -- Abortion: how can you say that a pregnant seventeen-year-old, for whom having the baby will ruin her life, is doing something wrong by having an abortion? -- Reproductive technologies: what do you (...) say to infertile couples about the hi-tech ways to have a baby? -- Genetics and biotechnology: what do you tell couples who want to use biotechnology to produce designer children? -- Death, dying, and assisted suicide: don't people have a fundamental right to die? -- Capital punishment: isn't the death penalty a barbaric holdover from uncivilized cultures that should be done away with today? -- War and morality: in view of the Bible's teaching to love your enemies, why isn't every Christian a pacifist? -- Sexual ethics: shouldn't people be able to love and have sex with whomever they choose? -- Christian ethics, economics, and the workplace: how does my work connect to my spiritual life and my service to God? (shrink)

An affirmative post-structural philosophy of organization inspired by Arnold Gehlen's philosophical anthropology, Michel Foucault's history of medicine and Gille Deleuze's early philosophical works. This book offers a deep and detailed analysis of the problems faced and their solutions.

The life fantastic -- Bedtime stories -- The end of things -- Optical disillusions -- Double vision -- Backstage pass -- Romance languages -- Fellow-feeling -- Bolts from the blue -- Final fantasies.

With human language, the same utterance can have different meanings in different contexts. Nevertheless, listeners almost invariably converge upon the correct intended meaning. The classic Gricean explanation of how this is achieved posits the existence of four maxims of conversation, which speakers are assumed to follow. Armed with this knowledge, listeners are able to interpret utterances in a contextually sensible way. This account enjoys wide acceptance, but it has not gone unchallenged. Specifically, Relevance Theory offers an explicitly cognitive account of (...) utterance interpretation that presents a radical challenge to the neo‐Gricean paradigm. Evolutionary considerations are one way in which we can choose between competing theories. A simple game‐theoretic model of the evolution of communication is presented, and it is used to derive a number of basic qualities that will be satisfied by all evolved communication systems. These qualities are observed to precisely predict the foundational principles of Relevance Theory. The model thus provides biological support for that enterprise in general, and for the plausibility of the cognitive mechanisms that it describes in particular. (shrink)

In this paper we distinguish between epistemic dilemmas, epistemic quasi-dilemmas, and quasi epistemic dilemmas. Our starting point is the commonsense position that S faces a genuine dilemma only when S must take one of two paths and both are bad. It’s the “must” that we think is key. Moral dilemmas arise because there are cases where S must perform A and S must perform B—where ‘must’ implies a moral duty—but S cannot do both. In such a situation, S is doomed (...) to violate a moral obligation. Analogously, S face’s a genuine epistemic dilemma only if she has an epistemic duty to believe that p and at the same time an epistemic duty to not believe that p (either because she has a duty to believe ~p or a duty to suspend judgment). We argue that such cases never arise because there is no epistemic duty to adopt a particular doxastic attitude towards any particular proposition (ever). Hence, there are no epistemic dilemmas. Nevertheless, one might suppose there are situations in which one’s evidence pulls in different directions without determining a uniquely justified doxastic attitude. Such epistemic quasi-dilemmas aren’t full-fledged dilemmas, but they are arguably close enough to pose a genuine problem for the believer. But we argue that there are no genuine epistemic quasi-dilemmas either: They are all resolvable in principle. Fans of dissonance will not be totally disappointed, however, since we argue that there may well be quasi-epistemic dilemmas. These are genuinely unwinnable situations in which one’s moral or pragmatic obligations to do epistemically-relevant things make incompatible demands. (shrink)

From the O.J. Simpson verdict to peace-making in the Balkans, the critical role of human judgement--complete with its failures, flaws, and successes--has never been more hotly debated and analyzed than it is today. This landmark work examines the dynamics of judgement and its impact on events that take place in human society, which require the direction and control of social policy. Research on social policy typically focuses on content. This book concentrates instead on the decision-making process itself. Drawing on 50 (...) years of empirical research in decision theory, Hammond examines the possibilities for wisdom and cognitive competence in the formation of social policies, and applies these lessons to specific examples, such as the space shuttle Challenger disaster and the health care debate. Uncertainly, he tells us, can seldom be fully eliminated; thus error is inevitable, and injustice for some unavoidable. But the capacity for make wise judgments increases to the extent that we understand the potential pitfalls and their origin. The judgment process for example involves an ongoing rivalry between intuition and analysis, accuracy and rationality. The source of this tension requires an examination of the evolutionary roots of human judgement and how these fundamental features may be changing as our civilization increasingly becomes an information and knowledge-based society. With numerous examples from law, medicine, engineering, and economics, the author dramatizes the importance of judgment and its role in the formation of social policies which affect us all, and issues the first comprehensive examination of its underlying dynamics. (shrink)

__Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning _answers an urgent call for teachers who educate children from diverse backgrounds to meet the demands of a changing world._ In today’s knowledge economy, teachers must prioritize problem-solving ability, adaptability, critical thinking, and the development of interpersonal and collaborative skills over rote memorization and the passive transmission of knowledge. Authors Linda Darling-Hammond and Jeannie Oakes and their colleagues examine what this means for teacher preparation and showcase the work of programs that are educating for (...) deeper learning, equity, and social justice. Guided by the growing knowledge base in the science of learning and development, the book examines teacher preparation programs at Alverno College, Bank Street College of Education, High Tech High’s Intern Program, Montclair State University, San Francisco Teacher Residency, Trinity University, and University of Colorado Denver. These seven programs share a common understanding of how people learn that shape similar innovative practices. With vivid examples of teaching for deeper learning in coursework and classrooms; interviews with faculty, school partners, and novice teachers; surveys of teacher candidates and graduates; and analyses of curriculum and practices, _Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning _depicts transformative forms of teaching and teacher preparation that honor and expand all students’ abilities, knowledges, and experiences, and reaffirm the promise of educating for a better world. (shrink)