Aristotle's account of the fact that neither being nor unity can be defined has more to do with the genus/species model of definition he used than any major metaphysical point.

This paper suggests a strategy for constructing a contemporary Humean theory of distributive justice which would serve to ground what I call an entrepreneurial welfare state. It is argued that blending David Hume's insights about the origins and purposes of justice with Ronald Dworkin's insurance-based reasoning supporting his equality of resources model of distributive justice will yield a state which, as a matter of justice, encourages its members to engage in entrepreneurial activities and which protects them from the worst extremes (...) of market economies. (shrink)

This paper provides a systematic statement of Ronald Dworkin’s political (as opposed to legal) philosophy. Dworkin’s defence of democratic institutions constrained by civil rights is shown to be linked to his defence of the economic market constrained by economic welfare rights. The theory is defended against attacks from H.L.A. Hart and L. Haworth. The possibility that the theory can be given a Kantian grounding is explored.

This paper provides a systematic statement of Ronald Dworkin’s political (as opposed to legal) philosophy. Dworkin’s defence of democratic institutions constrained by civil rights is shown to be linked to his defence of the economic market constrained by economic welfare rights. The theory is defended against attacks from H.L.A. Hart and L. Haworth. The possibility that the theory can be given a Kantian grounding is explored.

This paper argues that Plato’s version of the contractarian theory of justice is superior to all other statements of that theory. The conditions any adequate theory of justice must meet are outlined and it is shown how contractarian theories attempt to meet these conditions. The great contractarian theories---those of Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Rawls, and Gauthier---are shown not to provide an adequate account of the nature of justice. The source of these failures is identified and, finally, it is shown that Plato’s (...) version of contractarianism is immune to this sort of failure. (shrink)

This paper argues that Plato’s version of the contractarian theory of justice is superior to all other statements of that theory. The conditions any adequate theory of justice must meet are outlined and it is shown how contractarian theories attempt to meet these conditions. The great contractarian theories---those of Hobbes, Rousseau, Locke, Rawls, and Gauthier---are shown not to provide an adequate account of the nature of justice. The source of these failures is identified and, finally, it is shown that Plato’s (...) version of contractarianism is immune to this sort of failure. (shrink)

I argue that Plato's psychological theories are motivated by concerns he had about moral theory. In particular, Plato rejects the modern account of rationality as the maximization of subjectively evaluated self-interest because, had he adopted such an account, his theory of justice would be subject to criticisms which he holds are fatal to the contractarian theory of justice. While formulating a theory to remain within ethical constraints sometimes violates the canons of scientific theorizing, Plato avoids this mistake.

This paper deals with what a government funded development agency should do when a developing country imposes restrictions on the development process which discriminate on the basis of gender against some members of the development agency’s staff. The conclusion is that there are circumstances in which development agencies should continue their work in the face of gender discrimination but they should not instigate development projects if doing so would involve them in gender discrimination. A set of procedures for a development (...) agency to follow in these difficult circumstances is outlined. It is argued that an agency is entitled to violate a moral principle when so doing will reduce violations of that same principle. (shrink)

This paper deals with what a government funded development agency should do when a developing country imposes restrictions on the development process which discriminate on the basis of gender against some members of the development agency’s staff. The conclusion is that there are circumstances in which development agencies should continue their work in the face of gender discrimination but they should not instigate development projects if doing so would involve them in gender discrimination. A set of procedures for a development (...) agency to follow in these difficult circumstances is outlined. It is argued that an agency is entitled to violate a moral principle when so doing will reduce violations of that same principle. (shrink)

This paper looks to Bernard Suits’s analysis of games and game playing for at least a partial answer to the question in its title. It applies Suits’s analysis to Sudoku, a popular logic puzzle, and to Ana-lytical Reasoning, a question type in standardized assessments. The purpose is both to test Suits’s analysis in a novel domain and to give educators and test developers useful insight into the relationship between logic exercises and games.

While much of James O. Young’s Art and Knowledge is devoted to showing how works of art might be of cognitive value, we will focus on a prior claim, defended in the first chapter of Art and Knowledge, that “art” ought to be defined such that only works with cognitive value count as artworks. We begin by noting that it is not very clear—despite the considerable attention Young devotes to the matter—just what it is for an artwork to have cognitive (...) value. If by this claim he means only that we can learn something from a work, then the claim is trivial. We might learn from Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, for example, that a urinal can become an artwork. But Young assumes that if Fountain is a work of art, then some works of art do not have cognitive value. So he must have a richer, narrower conception of cognitive value in mind. For the moment let us not worry what this richer, narrower conception of cognitive value is. Rather, let us just assume, along with Young, that Fountain does not have cognitive value. Why, then, is this not a counterexample to Young’s claim that “art” ought to be defined such that only works with cognitive value counts as artworks? Shouldn’t we define “art,” if we are going to define it, such that all and only works of art count as art? Why ought we adopt a definition of something which excludes from the category being defined things that, on the definer’s own grounds, are properly within that category. Surely, for any definiendum the definiens ought to pick out all and only those things that have the necessary and sufficient properties for being labeled by the definiendum. (shrink)

When an activity is unwanted, administrators often adopt a zero tolerance policy towards that activity. The background assumption is that, by adopting a zero tolerance policy, one is doing everything that one can to reduce or eliminate the activity in question. Yet which policy best serves to reduce an unwanted behavior is always an empirical question. Thus, those who adopt a zero tolerance policy towards some behavior without first investigating and finding that they are in a set of circumstances where (...) that policy is the most cost-effective way of reducing or eliminating the undesirable behavior are committing the zero tolerance fallacy. (shrink)

The zero tolerance fallacy occurs when someone advocates or adopts a zero tolerance policy towards some activity or behaviour without seeing if there is evidence to support the view that such a policy is the best or most cost-effective way of preventing or reducing the unwanted behaviour. This paper explores the idea that, instead of thinking about what the zero tolerance fallacy is, argumentation theorists should try to characterize what features good arguments for zero tolerance policies must have.

Many of the problems we face can usefully be modeled as prisoners’ dilemmas. All the standard game-theoretic solutions to prisoners’ dilemmas lead, in the real world, to assurance games. But too often some aspects of our social interaction are as much obscured by, as illuminated by, game theory. Removing some of the epistemic constraints often accepted by game theorists will enable us to distinguish between productive and destructive prisoners’ dilemmas. Doing so is an important step in understanding the nature of (...) some of our social problems. (shrink)

die Behandlungsweise kann jedoch sehr verschieden sein. Diese letztere charakterisiert nicht nur eine bestimmte Auffassung von Philosophie, sondern ebenso den Philosophen, der sie anwendet. In dem Sinne ist jede Erörterung eines philosophischen Gedankens zugleich eine bio graphische Notiz. Der erfahrungswissenschaftliche Charakter der in diesem Band ge sammelten philosophische Gedankengänge entstammt zu einem er heblichen Teil der Kenntnisnahme der (ursprünglich amerikanischen) Kulturanthropologie. Ihr Schöpfen aus den Initiativen der alther kömmlichen Ethnologie wie auch aus der vergleichenden Völkerkunde hat, zusammen mit dem fruchtbaren (...) «:field-work», auf einer anthropo logischen Basis neue und neuartige Erfahrungen über den Menschen hervorgehoben. Dadurch ist mehr als ein bloßes Kooperieren von Philosophie und Wissenschaft gewachsen: hier hat sich der Charakter des Philosophischen selbst gewandelt. Diese Kooperation, ja vielmehr tiefgreifende Verschränkung ist ein Merkmal moderner Philosophie. Besonders im Denken von Hermann Wein ist dieses Charakteristikum zu einem fruchtbaren philosophischen Ausgangspunkt geworden. Das wäre sowohl für seine philosophisch-anthropologischen wie auch für seine sprachphilosophischen Erörterungen nachzuweisen. Eben in der Abschätzung und Durchdenkung jener Bereiche bekommt die Idee der Erfahrung ihre Gestaltungskraft. Als Grundmotiv wäre diese Idee zu betrachten - nicht als ein regelmässig wiederkehrender Hinweis oder die Formulierung irgendeiner Wünschbarkeit in philosophicis. Betrachtet man unsere Philosophie der Gegenwart, so ergibt sich, dass ein solcher Ausgangspunkt außer in anthropologischen und be stimmten sprachphilosophischen Erwägungen auch in ethischen Frage stellungen fruchtbar geworden ist - wir weisen auf die amerikanischen und anderen. (shrink)

Consider the following problem. A multinational corporation is expanding its operations to a developing country. The developing country in question is now a democracy or is in the process of becoming one, it has a (fairly) independent and corruption-free judiciary (or is in the process of establishing one), its human rights record, while not perfect, is improving, and its bureaucracy and police are not now terribly corrupt. But not too long ago, none of these things were true. A few years (...) back, the nation was run by a dictator, and the bureaucracy, judiciary, and police were all corrupt. Business people, and everyone else, had to operate within this corrupt system, and for business people this usually involved—at a minimum—lending tacit support to the existing regime, paying bribes, making financial “donations” to the ruling party, overlooking various “activities”, and so forth. (shrink)

Irrational thinking, religious fundamentalism, cults, magical beliefs and esoteric themes increasingly dominate western public life and philosophical debates, while rationality and logical thinking is continuously and increasingly being vilified. This has led to a state of utmost helplessness, when dealing with claims of (religious) fundamentalism and illegitimate metaphysics of power, while conversely the day-to-day living environment remains highly technical and positivistic. Puzzled by this increasing division, this book tries to elucidate: The emergence of the concept “irrational”, after Kant’s Critique of (...) Pure Reason and the metamorphosis from its origins at the end of the 18th century into the 20th century. The methodical consequences of the Copernican revolution, which split off domains of the individual such as the body, nature, singularities, coincidence, will, life or the soul (which had been recognized as an organic compartment of the individual) as representations, converting them into new and dynamic elements for post-Kantian philosophies: body – Nietzsche, will – Schopenhauer, life – Lebensphilosophie, singularity/coincidence – existentialism, nature – romanticism, soul – early psychoanalysis etc. Finally, criteria for irrational philosophies are being presented. (shrink)